Reward offered for stolen flat screens in Salinas smash and grab case

Thieves grabbed some expensive flat-screen TV’s at a local store and now that business is putting up a reward for their arrest. The brazen burglars are still on the loose tonight and police are asking for your help. Aaron’s Sales and Lease Store owner David Sewart said he’s surprised it happened because he’s done businesses at his local Salinas franchise for about a decade now. He said this is the first time he’s had to deal with crime like this.

In store surveillance video, two burglars are seen smashing the front door twice at the store on North Sanborn at 4:00 a.m. on Thursday. The duo then went directly to a stack of 40-inch Samsung Smart TV’s.

“I’m offering a reward for any information of $5,000 ’cause I really want to catch them,” Sewart said.

Sewart said four units were stolen, valued at $4,000. He said they also did about $3,000 in damage to the store.

“It goes straight to the bottom line, so you know instead of being able to have a good Christmas party, we’ll just have an OK one. You know, because we can’t do a lot of the things we wanted to do,” Sewart said.

Sewart thinks it was a coordinated effort. He said several cars are seen driving away from the shopping center, making for a quick getaway. Initially the thieves had trouble with a bar on the door as they tried to squeeze all four of the flat screen TVs underneath. Salinas police said unfortunately the city sees a lot of burglaries, especially this time of year. Even so, store manager Marie Rosiles said customers are still surprised.

“They keep asking, what’s going on, if it’s really safe to come to this area. It’s really scary to think they’re just going to come back and do it again,” Rosiles said.

To keep thieves from coming back, Rosiles said the expensive electronics will be kept in the back of the store. But the surveillance cameras will stay in place.

“Anger, anger and I wish I would have been there when they came in,” Sewart said.

To share information, you can call Salinas police anonymously at 1-800-78-CRIME.