The police don’t care about your AirPods. The manager probably cared for a second, but the way you handled it, most likely annoyed them to the point that they have no interest in helping you find them. A private company isn’t going to expose the personal information of its clients to another private citizen; that’s a massive liability issue. Doing so would leave them open to being sued. You pressing the issue, and making ridiculous requests that most people would understand aren’t reasonable, is only compounding the issue.

Had you dealt with this differently, the manager probably would have reviewed the video. If they found anything, they’d most likely have worked with you on filing the police report. All you’ve done by approaching things as aggressively as you have, is convince the manager to not act proactively or cooperate with you. If they provided confirmation along with evidence of a particular suspect as part of your effort to file a report, the police would follow through.

Right now, your report’s details mean the police have to investigate to obtain evidence—it’s incomplete, in that sense. Those are man-hours that don’t always yield results, and not worth the cost of doing so for the item in question—especially because it’s not clear that a crime even occurred, or if you lost the item. If your report included confirmation that reliable evidence existed that:

1). a crime occurred

2). the suspect has been identified

3). who to contact to retrieve said evidence

then they’d have Probable Cause (minimum requirement to make an arrest) *and *a suspect. Because Felony Larceny starts at a value of greater or equal to $250, they’d definitely get your item back, and make an arrest. That manager was the one person you shouldn’t have alienated—corporations have strict rules regarding communication with law enforcement in these situations, which means it’s a headache for her to help you. She had to WANT to help you, to not mind going through that.

And to be honest, she was right to not share anything with you. You said you saw an address, AND WENT TO THE LOCATION. Thank God you didn’t have the apartment number. That’s the exact kind of thing she was trying to prevent—that business doesn’t want to be responsible for the possible outcome of someone making such an idiotic decision, and she doesn’t want to lose her job.

If losing something that, by design, is easy to lose bothers you this much…maybe you shouldn’t own it in the first place. They’re just AirPods, guy. Life gets way harder.

TL; DR

Knowing what information police need to see in a police report for smaller crimes, can greatly increase the chances they follow through. If you collect evidence to reach the minimum threshold for an arrest and include that information when you file, you’ve removed the financial demotivation for them to act, by eliminating investigative costs. If you need the help of others to make that happen, be tactful and act with intent when discussing their cooperation. Make requests, not demands.

And for chrissakes, don’t go looking for suspected criminals at their homes without the police involved.