By PATRICK L. MYERS
A burglary took place at Pioneer Grocery in South Bend over the weekend when two juveniles forced the back door to the store open. The burglars used a hatchet and a tire iron to force the door open. Once inside, the juvenile burglars cut surveillance lines to the cameras, forced open the safe and took upwards of $2,000.
"The burglars actually left some of the money up on the counter. I don't know if they realized that they had messed up with the cameras, or if they were just generally nervous," said South Bend Police Chief Dave Eastham.
"The burglars must have missed some of the surveillance lines because there was still a video feed from some of the cameras, and from the feed officers and staff members at the Pioneer Grocery were able to identify the burglars," Eastham added.
Search warrants were issued for each of the two juveniles, one 17-year-old, and the other a 14-year-old. All the money that was stolen was recovered.
The parents of the juveniles complied to the search warrants, and incidentally, this was not these particular burglars first time around. The burglars admitted to other burglaries that have been going on around South Bend, such as the Timberland Library and Tienda Mexicana Betzy LLC.
Chief Eastham cited Officer McComas for his "outstanding work on the case," as well as Pioneer Grocery for having surveillance cameras.