Store owner gives Black Friday theft victim $1,000 gift

Alan Howard had just finished a busy Black Friday at the Babylon appliance store he co-owns with his brother when he sat down at his home computer.

"I saw this story online and said, 'You got to be kidding me,' " he said Monday. Howard decided to try to help.

The story was that of a woman in West Palm Beach, Fla., who camped out in front of a Best Buy store for more than 20 hours and then had her merchandise stolen from her car.

Kerry Ann Brown, 26, a Jamaican native who immigrated to New York before moving to Florida in 2004, was planning a trip to Jamaica in December with gifts for a young sister and other young relatives.

"Kids in Jamaica are not as privileged as kids up here," Brown said. "They don't have easy access to computers."

So Brown camped outside the local Best Buy store from midnight Wednesday, until it opened Black Friday and purchased 3 computers and printers for her relatives. But after placing the gifts in her car, she stopped in another nearby store for five minutes, she said.

When she returned, the passenger car window of her Toyota was smashed and the gifts were gone. Brown's mother was with her. "I was crying. She was crying, also," Brown said. "Both of us were just, 'Oh my God.' "

Howard, who with his brother, Marc, owns Plesser's Appliance, responded by offering $1,000 to replace her stolen items, a gesture that has made the national news.

"It was an impulse thing," Howard said. "Let me help her out. This woman waited in line 22 hours then got her stuff stolen.

"If it could make her day, why not? I've got a friend in West Palm Beach now."

The next thing he knew, national media was all over the story. Perhaps it was just a "feel good" thing, he said, but "I am completely surprised it has gotten so big."

Television, radio and newspaper reporters swarmed his store Monday, he said.

At first, his idea was to provide Brown a $1,000 gift certificate from Plesser's. But Howard said that offer appeared self-serving, like an advertisement for his company. "So I decided to send her a personal check from me, and I told her to spend it wherever you want," Howard said.

Howard said business this year at his store appears to be rebounding in a down economy. When he got home Friday, he was just looking on the Web to check reports of retail sales nationwide.

He saw Brown's story at the website for WPBF, an ABC affiliate in West Palm Beach. CNN then picked up that story. He first sent an e-mail to WPBF, and then Saturday the station put him on the phone so he could speak with Brown.

Howard said he talked to her late Sunday, when he decided to send a personal check instead of a gift certificate. The check went out Monday morning, in overnight mail, he said.

"This time I told her when she puts the gifts in the car to drive them straight home."

"It's a lesson for me," said Brown, a high school teacher's assistant. "Whenever you have something of value . . . go straight home, and then you can continue shopping throughout the day."

With Bill Mason