Robbed! For reals!

Last night someone broke into the bakery and stole the plasma screen TVs. There were two at the bakery on Richmar and S. Eastern, and they were installed because Joni and Curt wanted to create a loop of all of the bakery's appearances on the Food Network. Anyway, they never got around to it, and now they never will because someone took the TVs. Max and I were the first ones to the bakery this morning and I was the first person to see what had happened. When I came into the showcase area, the first thing I noticed was that this black metal rack had been knocked over and bread was scattered on the floor. I thought that it must have taken a pretty irresponsible person the night before to knock that over and NOT pick it back up. Then I saw that there was broken glass on the far side of the room and that one of the windows had been boarded up with plywood. My brain still wasn't making the connection at that point. I noticed next that the register drawer was open and the flat screen monitor that sits over it was missing. I started to panic a little bit. Neurons in my brain were firing and I was making the connection. I looked around at the glass cases and everything seemed to be there, but when I remembered what the most valuable things in the room were, I was not surprised to see them gone. Both TVs had been torn off the wall with their electrical cords spewing out of the walls like shiny metal intestines.

Max and I put the pieces together but we couldn't figure out why the window had already been boarded up. Did the guys who steal the TVs do that? We thought maybe Joni already knew about it and there was some sort of clean-up effort made the night before after we had left and went home. Max called Joni first to tell her what had happened. The next call was to the police so we could file a report. After the police had been called Max walked around to the front of the store and found a little white piece of paper that explained the window. It was left by the police the night before. They had arrived on the scene, found the window smashed, and tried to call the owner (we still don't know who they called and how they failed to get a hold of Joni). When they were unable to talk to Joni, they boarded the window up and left.

It's a shitty situation but it happens I guess. Joni's husband Curt is pretty pissed off. Joni seemed to take it well and I saw her laughing at something only a few hours after she had found out. Needless to say that the TVs won't be replaced.

We heard from a neighbor (someone was working the graveyard shift at Carl's Jr.) that 2 cars had pulled up to the building late the night before. There were at least 5 people involved. Two of them went out back by the dumpsters to watch the alley behind the store. Then three other people smashed the window in and took the TVs. The alarm must have gone off, and the guys must have been rushing because they neglected to take a laptop that was out on a counter right next to one of the TVs. They went into the register but only found some change. The bills are always removed the night before, obviously. The only things that seemed to be missing were the TVs.

Two things that we thought about later were the following: once the guys broke into the store through the window, they didn't open the doors up to get the TVs out. They took the TVs and then climbed through the same window they came in through. That wasn't very smart. The doors could have been easily opened up from the inside and they wouldn't have had to step over the metal bar that separated the window into two parts. Also, we assumed that they didn't fuck with any of the pastries. We would probably know by now if someone got sick, but it would have been pretty easy to put something in the food. That seems unlikely though. They didn't maliciously break anything else in the store. They just grabbed the TVs, checked the register, and knocked over a few things in the process.

Anywho, that made today an exciting day. And the bakery closes at 4pm on Sunday! That's like a half-day as far as I'm concerned!

The person working the graveyard shift at Carl's Jr. has been very helpful, and thanks to his/her information, the police are now looking for these two guys, believed to be working with the thieves: