(COLORADO SPRINGS) — Smash-and-grabs are increasing across Colorado Springs. In the last two weeks, at least two shops had cars smash into them in hopes of stealing guns and ammunition.
FOX21 News spoke with the owners and one of them said they had 13 guns stolen and close to $65,000 worth of damage. Police say there are multiple suspects, and they are thought to be the same group responsible for both burglaries.
“They rammed through the wall, climbed over the hood of the car and ran in the store,” said Steven Kinder, the general manager at Spartan Defense and Training.
Two gun stores on Colorado Springs were broken into on the same night, Aug. 8.
“Our biggest concern is guns being out there that shouldn’t, guns being in the hands of criminals,” said Kinder.
In the past month, four gun shops in the city have had a smash-and-grab or been robbed.
“At just about 3:30 a.m. I had some masked individuals come and ran a car through our door, through our window and steal some firearms,” said Ted Collins, the owner of Spartan Defense and Training.
Collins tells FOX21 he had a total of 13 firearms stolen on the night of the 8th.
“They did steal some ammo, but it was mostly Glocks, and it was mostly AK-47’s from my understanding. They recovered a majority of these items. At this point, they did find one of the Glocks had a Glock switch added onto it, which was acquired off of a Chinese website and shipped to him, which makes that gun a fully automatic, it’s an illegal device,” added Collins.
The first attempt that same night was at DCF Guns, but the suspects there were unsuccessful.
“It was the exact same car, actually. They tried to hit us first and they hit the front entrance and then realized that our barrier was going to be too hard to get through, so they left. They actually left their bumper at our location and went to Spartan and smashed through them,” said Devin Perkins, a marketing representative for DCF.
Police told FOX21 News that there are multiple suspects, all thought to be the same group since the same car was used, and detectives say those suspects are all minors.
“From what the police have told us so far, they’ve apprehended several of the individuals and the majority of them are under age 13 or 14 years old. One who was 18 years old, was the one that basically ran from them, it looks to be gang related at this point in time,” said Collins.
In the state of Colorado, it’s a federal offense to steal guns, and adults can face up to 20 years in prison. Though for minors, it is only a misdemeanor.
“They know that they can’t get the book thrown at them as hard as an adult can after 18, if it’s not that bad of a crime, they’re scot-free and able to basically re-up on their resume to do whatever they want for the gang,” said Perkins.
The string of robberies is a major concern, but the Colorado Springs Police Department said it is working hard to put a stop to it.
“It’s just it’s an epidemic, it keeps happening over and over again. It’s always the same thing. It’s always two cars one is a ram car, one is a getaway car,” said Kinder.
