HOUSTON – Police are searching for a man who has been caught on surveillance cameras breaking into several southeast Houston businesses over the past eight months.
The owner of Vanessa's Liquor on Interstate 45 and South Wayside Drive said he was shocked when he learned his cameras caught a man trying to squeeze his body through an eight inch gap, before taking off empty handed.
"I can't believe he was still trying to get in even though there were bars on the door," he said. "He sees us as an easy target and we need to do something about it."
Police said Vanessa's isn't the only business that has been targeted by this would-be-burglar. They said the same guy has hit up a handful of businesses at the South Wayside Village strip center over the past eight months.
In fact, a camera filmed the man breaking into a nearby Mexican restaurant seven times, each time breaking in through the front door and stealing money from the jukebox.
Investigators also think the man targeted the nearby South Texas Dental office. Surveillance footage showed the man break into the office and casually walk off seconds later with a flat-screen television he ripped off the waiting room wall.
As for the owner of the liquor store, he just hopes the video will be enough to help catch the thief.
"I don't know what to do anymore. I put bars, we have cameras, an alarm system. What else is it going to take for us to stop this guy?" he said.