A Masked Man Walked Past a Police Car Carrying $49,000 in Stolen iPhones. The Cruiser Was Empty the Whole Time.

A clip is making the rounds again: a man in an all-black hoodie and unmistakable red sneakers works his way down a row of display tables inside an Apple Store, ripping iPhones free one after another while a customer just stands there watching. It plays like it happened yesterday. It didn't — this is February 2024 footage from Emeryville, California, resurfacing with none of that context attached.

Just after 10:30 a.m. on February 5, 2024, a masked man walked into the Apple Store on Bay Street in Emeryville and moved from table to table, tearing iPhones off their security tethers and stuffing them into his pants. In roughly 45 seconds, he made off with 50 phones worth a combined $49,230.

As he left, the man walked directly past a marked police cruiser parked outside — which is the moment that made the original clip explode online, framed as proof police were sitting feet away and did nothing. Emeryville police later clarified that the patrol car was unoccupied and being used as a visual deterrent; no officer was actually stationed there at the time.

Investigators identified the man in the video as Tyler Anthony Mims, then 22, of Berkeley. He was arrested and booked on three counts each of conspiracy, burglary, grand theft, and organized retail theft. Two days later, police arrested him again — this time alongside 28-year-old Undre Deshaun Railey — for a separate theft of 75 iPhones worth $68,035 from the Berkeley Apple Store that same week.

The Emeryville and Berkeley Apple Stores were hit seven times between late November 2023 and early February 2024, with prosecutors ultimately tying roughly $329,000 in stolen merchandise to the pattern — including a separate haul of nearly $255,000 in goods linked to the same crew. The viral 45-second clip was just the one moment out of a much longer string of thefts that happened to get caught on someone's phone.

This clip has recirculated multiple times since 2024, typically stripped of its date and shared as if it just happened, feeding into ongoing arguments about retail theft and policing. IF Daily is covering it now because it's actively spreading again today — not because anything new occurred. The case itself was resolved in the courts years ago.