HOLLYWOOD, Fla. (WSVN) — The owners of a computer repair shop hope that the public will help them find two men who, they said, broke into their business and took off with eight laptops, including one belonging to a police officer.
According to the owners of Computer Services by Kenny P, the burglars broke into their store on Monday, at around 5:30 a.m. Kenny Pollock and Laura Romeo said they were already awake and could see the break-in unfold on their security system, which feeds to their cellphones.
The business owners said one of the subjects broke the glass window on the front door and then reached through the glass to open the door, possibly leaving some blood behind. "They kind of weren’t the smartest criminals," said Pollock.
7News cameras captured crime scene investigators, later that day, snapping pictures and collecting DNA evidence outside of the business, located just off Hollywood Boulevard.
Surveillance video shows the duo entering the store. One of them could be seen wearing a hoodie while the other tried to cover his face with some sort of bandanna.
The burglars are then seen quickly grabbing all the laptops they could find. "They were in and out so quick that they didn’t even take the chargers that were sitting on top of the computers," said Pollock. "They overlooked, like, an expensive iMac computer that we had. That was worth a lot more than the laptops they took."
Romeo said the subjects unknowingly stole a laptop that belongs to a Hollywood Police officer. "We do want to let them know that it’s going to be investigated," she said.
Moments after the burglars snatched the computers, Pollock said, the alarm went off. "They kind of just looked for one quick second and kind of sped up a little bit more, but it didn’t really faze them too much," he said.
The subject with the bandanna over part of his face is seen wearing red and black shorts with the Miami Heat logo, along with matching red and black sneakers. Shortly after the alarm went off, he is seen turning off the lights while the other burglar is seen going into another room and telling his accomplice he can’t see and asking him to turn the lights back on.
"So he kind of turns back around," said Pollock, "and then he ran back out there and into the room over there, where he took a laptop that we had in the back, my grandma’s laptop."
Romeo said they will be able to track down the stolen laptops. "We do have some tracking on the computers that we can look and see if we can get to the computers so that anyone that buys them from them is going to be part of the crime," she said.
Both subjects remain at large. If you have any information on their whereabouts, call Broward County Crime Stoppers at 954-493-TIPS. Remember, you can always remain anonymous, and you may be eligible for a $3,000 reward.