Owner of Paco’s Mexican Cuisine locks would-be thief inside walk-in freezer

The would-be thief who attempted to get away from Paco’s Mexican Cuisine on Friday night with a bag full of popsicles and meat might have actually been glad when police showed up to the scene.

Because when police arrived at the Magnolia Avenue restaurant, just before 9:15 p.m. Friday, the man had already been locked inside a much colder cell for about 20 minutes than the one he would later see at the Mansfield Jail.

Francisco Islas, the restaurant’s quick-thinking owner, had grabbed the lock for the door of the walk-in freezer before he went in to confront whoever was rummaging through the goodies inside.

“Really, I grabbed the lock for protection, because it’s pretty big, pretty heavy,” said Islas, 23. “I startled him when I asked him, ‘What are you looking for in here?’ He looked at me, just stunned.”

There was a bag, usually filled with popsicles, resting beside the would-be thief, brimming instead with different cuts of meat. But instead of defending himself with the lock, Islas used it for its primary function, and locked the man inside the freezer, which Islas says is kept around 10-15 degrees. He then called police.

“He had a ribeye, some quail, a bunch of sausage links, some pork tenderloin,” Islas said. “Before the police got there, I could hear him crying in there.”

The value of the food items inside the bag was more than $400, according to a police report.

Fort Worth police officer Daniel Segura, a department spokesman, said that the man locked inside the freezer called 911 to report his own cold emergency. According to Segura, the man claimed to have heard a cat meowing loudly in the adjacent alley, and accidentally made his way inside the freezer in an attempt to rescue the cat.

Marshall Smith, 36, was arrested in connection with the burglary. He remained in Mansfield Jail on Saturday, facing one charge of burglary of a building.

No cat was found in the alley, Segura said.

Paco’s Mexican Cuisine has operated on Magnolia Avenue since October 2016.

This story was originally published August 19, 2017 at 3:01 PM with the headline "Owner of Paco’s Mexican Cuisine locks would-be thief inside walk-in freezer."