JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – Three people accused of breaking into more than a dozen Southside businesses over the weekend were caught on surveillance camera, and the video shows the vandals very clearly.
Your Pie, a new restaurant at Beach and Hodges boulevards, was among the group of burglarized businesses.
The owner of Your Pie hopes the clear video will help police track down the assailants quickly. The security system at the restaurant is new, which is perhaps why the burglars didn’t get away with any stolen items, but instead, left a lot of damage.
Your Pie employees said when they entered the eatery Saturday morning, they noticed things strewn around the restaurant. They also saw they weren’t the only business in the area that had been targeted.
In the surveillance video, which captures a burglary around 4 a.m., you can see three people smash through Your Pie’s front door. The vandals wore clothing over their faces, along with gloves, and one of them had on a backpack.
UNCUT: Your Pie surveillance video
They left after realizing that they weren’t going to get their hands on anything of value. One of them destroyed a surveillance monitor on the way out.
Around the same time, 15 to 20 other Southside businesses -- including an H&R Block, Cricket Wireless and several other restaurants from University Boulevard and Emerson Street to farther east on Beach Boulevard -- were vandalized in the same manner.
News4Jax crime and safety analyst Gil Smith warned other businesses, saying if owners have had their security systems in place for several years, now might be a good time to see if the company that runs the system can come and check it out.
There might be new upgrades or features available.