SAN DIEGO (FOX 5/KUSI) — The San Diego Police Department’s Northeastern Division is investigating three separate break-ins at businesses early Monday morning.
Perfect Pizza in Rancho Bernardo, Todo Sushi and Subway off Carroll Canyon in Scripps Ranch were all broken into early Monday morning around 5 a.m., the owners confirmed.
While police can’t confirm if the break-ins are connected, in all three break-ins the stores’ said the thief used a sledgehammer to break the front glass.
Surveillance video from Perfect Pizza shows the would-be thief break the front door’s glass, walk straight to the cash register, seemingly realized it’s empty and then went to the store’s safe.
“You can see him just taking the sledgehammer and slamming into the safe,” Hector Davila said. “We had called 911, the whole thing appeared to be less than 10 minutes,”
The thief ends up dragging the safe through the pizza shop, as 13 cameras captured his every move.
“We have the alarm, the alarm was going off, he didn’t care,” Davila said. “His accomplice, I’m going to say, it looked like it appeared to be a female, jumped out and helped him try to bring it into the trunk of the vehicle and by that time, he had just left.”
After struggling for a few minutes, they end up leaving the safe outside and driving off. Davila said he didn’t get away with anything, and even if he had taken the safe,
“There’s nothing in the safe,” Davila said.
Now, he’s left with a mess to clean up and a $1,500 glass repair bill.
“It’s a violation someone is coming in and taking your stuff and destroying your things,” he said, adding that being a mom-and-pop shop it’s a heavy and unexpected hit.
This comes less than two weeks after similar break-ins with a sledgehammer at several businesses in 4S Ranch. Davila said this was the second break-in at his pizza store and he plans to beef up his security.
“You need something to make it harder for them to get in, so that’s what I’m going to do next,” Davila said.
Despite the headache, the boarded up window and the repair bill, he said they’ve already seen a big show of support within just hours.
“They’re doing a lot for us right now, I mean it was 10 this morning and I already had a $70 order, very surprised,” Davila smiled.
On Monday, they had already had a fundraiser for Rancho Bernardo High School’s Music Booster Club, and they continued it Monday, giving 20% of proceeds back to the school. While helping out the community, he hopes they will also support him in this time.
