By James Rincon

Pflag Reporter

Pflugerville police are investigating a string of burglaries that has hit businesses along West Pecan Street during the past month.

The alarm at Imaginations, 301 W. Pecan St., was tripped at 4:40 a.m. Feb. 21. A surveillance camera in the store shows the intruder move quickly through the store, knocking over some paintings and stopping only at the register to pocket $150 in bills and quarters before leaving the way he or she came in.

“He used a crowbar and broke in the side door that’s in-between me and the car wash and went straight to the cash drawer to pick out what cash was in there and walked straight out,” Imaginations owner Britta Herzog said. “He didn’t break anything. He just damaged the door and damaged some paintings I had in the back. I say it’s a he – he walked like a man.”

The surveillance video shows the burglar wearing white tennis shoes, blue jeans and a black jacket and Herzog said he was probably wearing latex gloves. She said the police reviewed the tape and checked the store for fingerprints.

Police are not releasing any details of the case due to the pending investigation.

A quarter-mile down the road motion sensors activated the alarm at Shamrock Cycles 20 minutes after the break-in at Imaginations.

“[PPD] said they think the guy was on foot and basically robbed [Herzog], took some cash and then walked over here and robbed me. He demolished the front door to get in,” Shamrock owner Nick Ashcraft said. “First time I’ve ever left cash overnight – I’ve been in Austin five years and moved here January 1, first time I’ve ever left cash. The cash was wrapped inside of a check a customer had written me. He [the burglar] was kind enough to leave the check. Sitting on top of the cash and the check was a pistol, and he was kind enough to leave the pistol for me also and just took the $302 cash and apparently went out the front door.”

A week prior to the Feb. 21 break-ins, a similar incident occurred at Jim’s Food Mart on West Pecan, one block from Ashcraft’s shop.

“They just broke the backdoor and came in and got the cigarettes and that’s it. They took out like two cartons of cigarettes,” said storeowner Tido Dang. “I don’t keep money in the store.”

Dang’s store has an alarm, though during the break in it was deactivated. Since the incident, Dang has reactivated the alarm and installed a new camera to monitor his store’s blind spots.

“The way I set up the cameras was only in the front, and he came around the back,” Dang said. “Every night I turn the camera direct to the door. Before I only turned the camera to the front door, not the back door. Now I turn the cameras to both.”

Herzog and Ashcraft have also augmented their security measures.

“I’m going to bolt that back door shut for sure with something stronger than a deadbolt. And I thought about boarding it completely up because I don’t use it,” Herzog said. “Secondly I’m going to get another camera, and thirdly – and this is something I wanted to get out to people – if you have an alarm system, have it call the police department first, don’t call you first. They waster probably five minutes talking to me in dead sleep when they could have been here.”

Ashcraft has ordered four security cameras that will record to computer and to a satellite database. He also echoed Herzog’s advice about in-store security systems.

“My alarm had gone off and we were asleep, so we kind of screwed up because the cops would have had the guy – the cops were right down the road.” Ashcraft said. “It never dawned on me on the ride over here, which is a 15 minute drive, to call PD and have them get over here. And the alarm company didn’t, so when I got over here I grabbed the handle of the front door and opened the front door and realized – wait a minute. I grabbed the flashlight and made sure nobody was still in here through the windows of the shop door. And then I called PD and I tell you literally in 45 seconds there were at least 9 cop cars, because they were just right down at HER place. Since then I called the alarm company and said don’t ever call me first, you call the cops first. If they would have called the cops first, or if we had been coherent enough to say get the cops there, they most likely would have got the guy.”