Homeless Felon, Drug Sale Convict Accused Of Stealing Dunkin’ Tip Jar

CONCORD, NH — A homeless felon is facing more felony charges after being accused of stealing a tip jar from Dunkin’ Donuts in Downtown Concord and possessing drugs in late January.

Around 11:15 p.m. on Jan. 27, an officer searching for a man involved in an assault incident in a separate call drove past Dunkin’ Donuts at 121 S. Main St. and saw a man on a bicycle in the drive-thru window. The man, the officer wrote, appeared to have the “entire upper half of his body” inside the drive-thru window.

“I believed that the individual was reaching inside of the business for something, given that he was protruding abnormally far into the window,” a report stated.

The officer pulled a U-turn and returned to the restaurant just as the man left the area on his bicycle. The officer followed him north on South Main Street and onto Storrs Street. The man was accused of not having reflective gear, and his bicycle did not have lights.

The officer turned on the cruiser’s emergency lights to stop the man and accused him of being “frantic” and “hopping around his bicycle as if he (were) startled.” The officer said he did not see anything in the man’s possession that appeared to be purchased at the store. An affidavit stated the officer reported hearing what sounded like coins rolling around on the ground and a dollar bill while asking the man to move to the sidewalk so they were not in the middle of the street.

“When the male stepped to the sidewalk,” the officer wrote, “and put his bicycle down, he also placed a small light blue colored bucket on the ground that read ‘TIPS’ and had banknotes in it.”

The man, identified as Michael Scott Davis, 52, a homeless man now located in Concord, “was hyper vigilantly looking around once he got on the sidewalk,” which was consistent with “looking for a way to escape.” The officer could not get immediate backup, so he placed Davis in handcuffs, read him his Miranda rights, and began questioning him about the tip jar.

“Michael put his head down and didn’t say anything,” the officer wrote.

When asked how much money was in the tip jar he had just stolen, Davis said, “without hesitation tole me ‘6 or 7 bucks’ and did not deny stealing the tip jar,” an affidavit stated. He was accused of telling the officer he asked for a cup of water and, while standing there, saw the tip jar and “decided to reach in and grab it because he was hungry.”

Davis was searched, and inside a pocket, the officer found a baggie of an off-white, tan-colored powder believed to be fentanyl as well as marijuana in a hip pouch, the report said. He did not, however, have a medical marijuana card, the officer wrote.

The officer inventoried the money from the jar and found it totaled $3.74, the report stated.

Another officer went to Dunkin’ and spoke to an employee who estimated the cup was valued at $1 and confirmed the cup was the employee tip jar, the report said.

The affidavit said Davis’ criminal record included a theft conviction in Plymouth District Court in March 2012 and a felony theft convicted in Merrimack County Superior Court in November 2013, so the theft of the tip jar charge was elevated to a felony, along with a felony drug charge and a marijuana violation. The officer wrote that Davis was also convicted of controlled drug: sale, etc., a felony, in Grafton County Superior Court in April 2019.

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