Pueblo County Sheriff: suspect steals ‘thousands of dollars worth of guns’ from 3 businesses
PUEBLO COUNTY, Colo. (KRDO) -- The Pueblo County Sheriff's Office is searching for a man suspected of an overnight burglary spree. Deputies believe the man acted alone and managed to steal thousands of dollars worth of guns.
The sheriff's office is linking one man to three robberies that happened early Monday morning.
At 2:58 a.m., deputies were alerted to a break-in at Vickie's Guns on Santa Fe in Blende by the store's alarm system. According to the sheriff's office, deputies arrived within minutes, but the suspect had already left.
PCSO says surveillance video showed a white Ford flatbed F550, with Colorado license plate CHN711, leaving the scene and a single male occupant. According to PCSO, the suspect had rammed into the building. Deputies say he appeared to be 6', 150 lbs., with shorter medium brown hair.
The owners of Vickie's Guns told KRDO the suspect only stole one item, an unusable firearm, but did cause significant damage to their store and fired a shotgun at the store's window.
They said the suspect only managed to break into their office and couldn't access the rest of the secured store. Because of this, the owners believe the suspect was "upset" and caused more property damage.
Less than two hours later, the same Ford crashed through a loading door at Prairie Sporting Goods on Spaulding in Pueblo West. There, the suspect stole several assorted caliber weapons within five minutes.
Prairie Sporting Goods said the robbery is a "devastating loss for us and the community."
After reviewing the surveillance video, deputies believe the same suspect was responsible for both break-ins.
According to PCSO, the same Ford F550 was used to ram into a pawnshop within the Pueblo city limits. Deputies believe that burglary happened at some point between the Vickie's Guns robbery and the Prairie Sporting Goods robbery.
According to the Pueblo Police Department, the Ford used in the three break-ins was stolen from a business in Pueblo before the first burglary.
While PCSO did not specify how much was taken, Sheriff Kirk M. Taylor said the stolen guns were worth "thousands."
“This was brazen, events like this don’t occur in the county often and we are narrowing in on this suspect,” said Sheriff Taylor. “Inside two hours, this individual stole thousands of dollars worth of guns, did thousands of dollars more in property damage, and demonstrated recklessness disregard toward others. They could become violent if confronted and should only be approached by trained law enforcement, so please us call if you know something about these incidents.”
Anyone with information is asked to contact the Pueblo County Sheriff's Office at (719)-583-6250 or Pueblo Crime Stoppers at (719)-544-STOP. A reward may be offered if the information provided leads to solving the case.
