Aptos businesses were burglarized five times in the month of October. All were night time/early morning incidents.
The first burglary happened at Rancho del Mar between 5:30 p.m. Oct. 8 and 9:30 a.m. Oct. 9, someone later identified as Eric Dwight Olson, entered Susi’s Flowers through an unlocked window. Bags of receipts were stolen and the cash register was broken into with only change taken because it is emptied each night. Investigators found a fingerprint on the cash box and on other areas in the shop. The cash box print was then checked against the state database and found a match identified as Olson’s.
On October 31 at about 11:55 p.m. Olson was arrested in the Rancho del Mar shopping center on suspicion of drug possession and violation of his probation. Authorities then added the commercial burglary charge after Olson confessed to the flower shop burglary.
The night of October 25 both the Quiznos Restaurant in Aptos Village and the Pacific Coffee Roasting Company in the Aptos Center were both broken into. The restaurant only suffered damage due to the break-in but no money was taken.
After the window at Pacific Coffee Roasting Company was broken with a large rock, the cash register was taken. The surveillance video shows that the burglary only took about 30 seconds. According to the owner, Deena Hope, this is the fourth time in the last three years that her business has been broken into by breaking the window and forcing the cash register open or just taking it.
Also in the Aptos Center sometime between 6 p.m. Oct. 25 and 4 p.m. Oct. 28, a burglar cut three padlocks on an outside 20-foot cargo container being used to store stock at the Outside-In the shop’s owner, John Hammond, said 25 boxes with nearly 2,300 Christmas ornaments worth about $37,000 were taken.
The fifth incident took place on the last day of the month, Oct. 31, involving another storage locker broken into by cutting padlocks on Soquel Dr. close to the CHP station from which approximately $2,000 in tools were stolen.
Sergeant Ian Patrick of the Aptos Sheriff’s Service Center said the Department will have 15 more officers available in eight months which will allow more units to be deployed throughout the county which will improve incidence response times and the visibility of officers on patrol.
He also suggested the following tips for both businesses and residents in protecting their property:
- Padlocks used for outside storage buildings or lockers, by a determined thief can be defeated by cutting or by force.
- Surveillance cameras should be high resolution — and working — in order to make identification of the thief easier.
- Surveillance recordings should be easily accessed and copied by the business or homeowner. (Some equipment requires a visit by a security company at extra cost and time before the recording can be provided to law enforcement.)
- Motion sensor activated lighting is a first-rate deterrent for would-be burglars
If a business or residence has a security system, Sgt Patrick said the sheriff’s dept would be glad to come out to evaluate it and make recommendations.
Law enforcement agencies such as a sheriff’s department will do their best to catch the offender but the best crime prevention is making it difficult for the criminal.