Thieves crash car into Apple Store: video

John Cox (Network World)
14 September, 2012 16:29
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Thieves crashed a car into an Apple retail store, swept up a bunch of iPhones and iPads and then had trouble getting the car out of the store, according to security tapes released by police.

The early morning robbery on Thursday, Sept. 6, was caught by two security cameras in the Apple Store at Promenade Mall, in Temecula, Calif., about 80 miles southeast of Los Angeles.

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The proximity to Hollywood suggests the thieves watched too many action movies. The footage shows what looks like a late-model blue car smashing its way under the front metal and glass entrance wall, into the unoccupied store. So far so good.

But the "entrance," though wrenched and twisted, seems to now work as if hinged at the top, or like a garage door, and the bottom edge falls back to the floor, behind the car.

A masked thief jumps from the passenger side and starts scooping iPhones from a display along one wall. The car's driver repeatedly backs up into the wall, trying to crash through it or slide under it. By this time the thief grabs a couple of iPads from another table. When the car again rams into the wall, and pushes the edge up from the floor, he slips under it and escapes to the outside.

The robbery is shown by two different store cameras. The video ends with the driver apparently trying to turn the car around inside the store.

Temecula police released the footage and said they have one suspect in custody. There was no information on which of the two robbers was being held.

John Cox covers wireless networking and mobile computing for Network World. Twitter: http://twitter.com/johnwcoxnww Email: john_cox@nww.com Blog RSS feed: http://www.networkworld.com/community/blog/2989/feed

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