'Chip bandits' crime story goes viral

A news report about two university students accused of drunkenly stealing a bag of Zellers brand chips from an open garage in Saanich, B.C., has gone viral nearly a month after it first aired.

The June 12 story by CTV Vancouver Island reporter Joe Perkins details the arrests of two University of Victoria female students after they allegedly grabbed the barbecue-flavoured chips from a woman’s garage in a leafy neighbourhood.

The police officer who briefed the media on the incident could barely contain his laughter as he described the alleged chip theft.

“These are very specific and hard to obtain barbecue chips,” Sgt. Dean Jantzen says in the CTV report that has been making the rounds online since someone uploaded it to YouTube.  “I haven’t tried these for myself, but my understanding is, that particular brand…is quite tasty.”

It’s also cheap at just $1 per bag.

By the end of his interview with reporters, the officer couldn’t keep a straight face.

“It appears that the effervescent chip package in the open garage just appeared too yummy to pass up for two highly intoxicated young ladies,” Jantzen says with a smirk.

Then he begins to giggle.

“There had been some illicit chip tastings.”

Finally, he throws his head back and says: “These are first-time chip offenders,” before bursting into laughter.

As of Tuesday afternoon, the news report had been viewed more than 105,000 times on YouTube.

Popular U.S. aggregation and gossip websites BuzzFeed and Gawker reposted the video under headlines like: “BBQ Chip Bandits’ Terrorize Sleepy Canadian City” and “Canadian Crime News is Everything You Want it to Be.”

As for the accused chip thieves, they have been charged with breaking and entering.