In the past four days, we've seen pickup trucks plow through five businesses across the Houston area.
One store was hit around 4am Thursday and another store was hit down the street. We have surveillance video of all the incidents and now police just need your help to catch the suspects.
They spent the morning cleaning up at this Chevron where jJust before 4am a pair of burglars backed up a white truck into the store. They smashed the window and made a mess, but didn't leave with what the store manager believe was their target: the ATM.
"When I came, it was all messed up, and the ATM was right there," said store manager Ganesh Rana.
About 10 minutes later and a few exits east on the North Beltway a Texaco station was hit. On its surveillance video, a similar white truck can be seen with two burglars.
The suspects were after the ATM. They tried their best but apparently weren't able to leave with any money, just doing a lot of damage.
"It's like always, nothing new; it's like the third time it happened right?" said customer Jose Salinas.
Actually, there's been at least five smash and grabs in as many days. A sports store off Murphy Road was hit at the beginning of the week with a truck. A convenience store on Lyons was hit just a day later using the same method, though the thieves left the stolen vehicle on site. Then on Wednesday, a store off Almeda suffered the same fate and once again the thieves left the car at the store. And didn't manage to steal the ATM either.
"It's one of those things. It's sad to see, you know, sad to see for the community, wish people would do better, wish people would understand that's not the way to go," said customer Marcus Rawls.
Houston police say other than the two cases Thursday, they don't know yet if all these smash and grabs are related. What they do know is that out of these five cases only once did the thieves actually made off with the ATM.
For that reason, detectives say they don't consider these very good burglars, but they were good at hiding their identities. If you have any information in these cases, you are asked to call Houston police.
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