CHARLOTTE, NC (WBTV) -
Surveillance video inside a Shelby pawn shop shows a vehicle intentionally smashing the locked front door early this morning. As debris and insulation rain down, a man gets out of the truck... but cameras don't show him grabbing anything inside the shop.
229 Pawn on Polkville Road {Hwy 226} has a variety of items including cell phones, musical instruments, jewelry, hand guns, and rifles. None of those items are missing. Beverly Wilson, one of the owners, says at the end of each day the guns are locked away and rifles are secured. She wonders if the culprit was inside the store before and saw the guns in the showcase. She suspects he smashed the front door with the intent of grabbing the guns - but didn't realize the weapons would be secured. Wilson says her husband left his one of a kind Harley Davidson motorcycle in the pawn shop Friday night. The culprit left it behind.
Cleveland County Sheriff's Office says a neighbor who was coming home from vacation early Saturday morning saw something on the road. She told police she thought it was an animal and stopped. That's when she saw the front of the pawn shop - smashed in.
Wilson tells WBTV "when that call came this morning at 4 o'clock I just never imagined the damage I saw when I got down here - just incredible." Of the surveillance video, she says 'it makes me sick every time I see it."
Police say they found a burgundy Ford F-150 truck abandoned a couple of miles from the pawn shop. They say two rear tires were flat, and the truck had extensive rear end damage. They believe this was the truck used to smash the pawn shop's front door. Police say the truck was stolen from stolen from Blanton Cars in Shelby.
While the owners of the pawn shop are still doing inventory to see if anything was stolen, Beverly Wilson says "I'm enraged about it. I'm just enraged. I don't know what individual, what type of person does something like this to other people. We're just trying to make a living."
Surveillance video catches a glimpse of the suspect. Police are still trying to identify the person.
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