Five would-be thieves caught red-handed by authorities

Friday, October 12, 2007

By Eric James

(10/12/07 - KTRK/HOUSTON) (KTRK) -- Officers are trying to determine whether five men arrested during a smash and grab burglary this morning are responsible for similar burglaries in the Houston area.

It happened around 2:30am on Normandy near the East Freeway. Investigators say they arrested five people, three adults and two juveniles, at the scene.

The alarm company notified authorities that there was something going on at the location. A constable was near the area and pulled into the parking lot and spotted four men loading up in a stolen van and a stolen truck with merchandise from the store.

One of the men hit the ground, another one took off running and the other two tried to hide inside the store. The fifth was caught at a store down the street.

K-9 units were brought in and they found the men hiding in the rafters of the store.

The store owner eventually arrived at the scene. He said he would have lost thousands of dollars in merchandise if it wasn't for his silent alarm, which was also recording the audio of the men who were hiding in the store. He was thankful that he had the alarm system in place.

"We got really lucky because the alarm system that we have is one of the best ones they do in this kind of industry. The silent trip is what happened. It doesn't have any noise," said store owner Muhammad Yousaf. "They were probably thinking if you look at the video, they were just walking around. They think that nothing happened. Nobody knows what happened."

The owner says he has a lot of damage, but he didn't lose a lot of merchandise.

Officers also found a stolen van at the scene which was full of thousands of dollars worth of stereo equipment. Investigators believe those items were taken from another smash and grab at a business in Baytown. On Wednesday, police say a group of people smashed into a clothing store on Bellaire and grabbed what they could, but had to run off because their vehicle got stuck.

Thieves drove through a front window of a stereo store on Monday in southwest Houston and stole thousands of dollars worth of merchandise. The owner of Thunder Sound says his place has been burglarized several times in the past few months.
(Copyright © 2007, KTRK-TV)

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