HOUSTON – Business owners are fed up after burglars targeted them for a second time in five months.
Surveillance video from two shops in a strip center on the 3900 block of Montrose Boulevard in Montrose shows at least two crooks. They worked fast and left behind a good amount of damage.
"It's just not fair," said ice cream store owner Jasmine Chida. "We're a local business and we work really, really hard and just to have this temporary inconvenience to happen to us is not OK with me."
The burglars broke into Chida's ice cream shop just before 6:30 a.m. Friday. The video shows one crook crash through a small window and race to the register. He eventually picks up a bolted-down safe and leaves with it, hurling it through the glass door.
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Once outside, the burglar ended up dropping the safe and leaving it there. Chida believes loud alarms installed after the previous burglary in March scared away the would-be thief.
"(He was) Realizing that the cops were coming. Our alarm was going off and he decided to take the safe back and drop it in front of our shop," said Chida. "And all that damage, everything that he did, was just a waste of time."
The burglars also broke into the General Joe's restaurant two stores down. In the restaurant's surveillance video, you see two men inside working to steal the safe. One even uses both feet to kick it loose, to no avail.
So, in the end, the burglars scored no cash or merchandise. But they did leave behind damage -- both structural and emotional.
"It loses our sense of security around here," said Chida. "My staff and I sometimes get here at 6 a.m. This happened at 6:19 on a Friday morning."
The burglars caused about $2,000 worth of damage. Anyone with information about the crime is asked to call Houston police.