Early Thursday morning burglars broke into Horn Photo in the Villagio Shopping Center. It comes just weeks after another break-in there. The total loss is $60 thousand.
The store owner says he is going to put bars on the windows and roll up doors to prevent this from happening again. Thieves made off with close to $30 thousand in cameras and equipment during a very fast and calculated burglary.
Fresno Police say the suspects used a sledgehammer when they shattered the front windows of Horn Photo early Thursday morning. The store owner believes the crooks are professionals who he thinks have targeted him before based on the methods used in both crimes.
Stan Grosz, Horn Photo owner said, "Usually it's a brand new sledgehammer, they've taken the price tag off of it, it comes right through the door and they beat it through and they come on with big tubs like they get from home Depot or Lowe's and they go straight to the very best cameras and they peel them into the tubs and fill the tubs as much as they can and then they run out."
Thursday morning's burglary was not captured on surveillance video, but Grosz has footage of the May burglary. Unfortunately, the recording has not been very helpful to police. The footage is dark and the burglars are completely covered up.
The owner says it's clear the thieves have been inside the store recently because they know the layout, even when the photo shop has the most in stock.
"They've cased the place and we've moved things around since the last robbery and last night when they came in they knew right where to go and if they had gone to the place they went to two months ago, they would've got nothing there, so they must've been in the store casing it," said Grosz. "Amateurs don't case, pros do."
The store owner says the Villagio Shopping Center has security during the day but not overnight. He says when he moved to this location from Belmont six years ago he assumed the better location would mean less crime. Unfortunately, he says it's forced him to take extreme security measures.
