WHITEFISH BAY -- It's a bizarre case of a man desperate to get money.
Police tell TODAY’S TMJ4 he knocked off dozens of parking meters in Whitefish Bay.
There's a lot of empty spaces now where the meters used to be. Police say they didn't have a lot of money inside - only about five dollars in change.
Police say he's a man on a mission, willing to do whatever it took to feed his stomach, and his drug habit. Surveillance video shows someone making a U-turn, plowing through a parking meter, calmly walking out, and loading up the goods.
"We have a bunch of the meters recovered,” says Sgt. Patrick Whitaker of the Whitefish Bay Police Department. “Each pole has 2 meters on it, and they're valued at $700 for this one whole unit here."
Police showed us parking meters bundled like twigs. 34 were stolen or damaged in the span of a day and a half.
Police say the suspect only got about $170 in loose change.
Ingrahm Moutry told police the idea came to him by accident. A couple months ago, he was driving, couldn't brake in time, and knocked over a meter with the quarters inside. He "remembered counting out thirteen dollars."
He admitted to police he's been addicted to crack cocaine for years, but "didn't want to resort to robbing people."
"It’s a felony. He either damaged or stole approximately $12,000 worth of parking meters,” says Sgt. Whitaker.
Investigators say he drove straight into the meters and plowed them down. Moutry finally got caught when someone saw him and called police.
“He tried to escape by putting the truck in reverse. He made a very sharp turn and turned it onto his side,” added Sgt. Whitaker.
It'll take a couple of weeks before all the parking meters are fixed. Most of the ones at the police department are broken beyond repair.
