An industrial area in Cochrane has attracted unwanted, sticky-fingered visitors of late and some business owners are expressing their disappointment with the lack of a response they say they’ve received from police.
Chris Love, the owner of Avalanche Plumbing, says his company van has been entered by thieves on several occasions. The thefts prompted Love to install surveillance cameras around his shop. “Next time we’re going to have video footage of these clowns.”
The cameras did not deter would-be thieves as Avalanche Plumbing was victimized again. Nearly $20,000 worth of tools and equipment were removed from the business and the actions of the thieves were recorded.
“On these four cameras we got an hour worth of these people, brazen, taking their time,” said Love. “There were syringes around the truck so I think they were probably partying a little bit at the same time.”
The intruders appear to be aware they were being recorded as the footage includes an attempt to tamper with a camera using a stick.
Love supplied the video footage to the Cochrane RCMP detachment but no arrests have been made in connection with the robbery.
Following the latest break-in, Love canvassed the area and discovered other shops had been robbed as well.
“I’ve heard it from numerous different businesses around,” said Love. “Very much the same, similar stories.”
“There’s a lot of people that are starting to get affected so they obviously feel this is a pretty easy target.”
Paul Atwal manages a nearby bottle depot and says the business has been targeted by thieves several times. Atwal says he has called the RCMP after each break-in but officers never arrive to investigate.
On Monday, the bottle depot’s alarm went off and the security company monitoring the alarm contacted both Atwal and the RCMP. Atwal arrived at the business 20 minutes after the call..
“The door was open ,” recalls Atwal. “I waited about five minutes and nobody (RCMP) showed up. I opened the door and walked into the bottle depot by myself. Luckily there was no one inside and nothing was stolen but the cops never showed up.”
Atwal says he has filed a police report with the RCMP after each intrusion.
Love says he wants RCMP to increase their patrols of the area.
“We’ve done everything we can do. We lock our vehicles, we got an alarm, we got cameras,” said Love. “What else can we do besides putting a nasty junkyard dog in here?”
CTV Calgary requested an interview with the Cochrane RCMP detachment. The request was declined as, according to an officer, the detachment was too short-staffed to comment on the matter.
With files from CTV's Kathy Le
