HOUSTON – Surveillance video captured vandals attempting to break into a Houston man’s car in the parking lot of his Galleria-area gym.
What happened
The video was recorded around 6 p.m. July 9 in the parking lot of Quality Life Fitness on Post Oak Place Drive.
Cameras in the parking lot showed Rob Wallace getting out of his car to grab his gym bag, closing the trunk and walking out of frame to enter the gym.
"They obviously noticed the briefcase ... in a briefcase is probably a laptop,” Wallace said.
He said his work laptop was in the briefcase.
Seventeen seconds after Wallace entered the gym, the same cameras showed a man get out of a truck that was parked several rows behind Wallace’s car. In the video, the man can be seen peering in the windows of several cars.
Eight minutes later, the driver backed up near Wallace’s car and a second man approached the car.
“The first time the gentleman jumps out of the vehicle, there’s two people, one of them jumps out of the car going to town trying to use a crowbar to break open that trunk,” he said.
The men would try two more times before giving up. Each time, they failed to get past the lock on the truck.
“The hard part was just thinking these people were in the lot for almost an hour if not longer than an hour and well before I arrived there and well after I walked in the door,” Wallace said.
What's next
Wallace shared the videos to his Instagram account, using a little humor by adding stickers and text. He warned his friends not to leave their valuables in the car, noting their trunks aren’t immune, either. He said the vandals caused $2,500 in damage with the crowbar.
It will take up to a week or more to complete the repairs, he said.
It was the fourth time his car has been targeted in less than three years.
He said the men in the video have not been caught.