JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – The owner of a Jacksonville tree trimming business says surveillance cameras caught a masked burglar taking more than $20,000 of his equipment.
Justin Hartmann, the owner of Canary Tree Service, said the man got inside using wire cutters to make a hole in a fence. His movement tripped a motion sensor, which sent an alert to Hartmann's cellphone.
At that point, the Hartmann contacted one of his employees who was in an office on the property. That employee called police and then confronted the burglar.
That's when the masked man took off with the equipment, Hartmann said. The equipment he got away with was insured, but a deductible still has to be paid.
"The process is not expedited, so in the meantime, we can’t go to work," Hartmann said. "We don’t have the tools for our trade. We have our trucks, but we don’t have our chainsaws. We can’t cut trees without chainsaws, and there’s literally dozens of people that work for us that are going to be impacted directly by this in the holiday season when they need it the most.”
The owner said if the crook needed money that bad, there was no need to break into his business.
“If he would have come to me and asked for a chance, we would have given him a job," Hartmann said.
According to Hartmann, other businesses in the area have also been burglarized in recent days, and they believe the same person is responsible. He's offering $2,500 for information leading to an arrest.