CARSTAIRS -- A trio of brazen thieves broke into Broken Wrench Automotive in the early morning hours on Jan. 31 in Carstairs and stole a laptop computer and an F-150 truck, said owner Ryan Pelletier.
For Pelletier the theft is a tough blow, as the shop has been open for less than a year.
"I've been in Carstairs for 16 years but the shop's only been open nine months," Pelletier said. "I decided I was going to stay close to home. The kids have moved out. I was going to have a relaxing end of my career."
Pelletier said he got a phone call at around 5 a.m. the morning of Jan. 31 from the alarm company saying the motion sensors both inside and outside the shop went off.
"I think they said they already called the police," he said. "I jumped out of bed, got dressed, was at the shop by quarter after five. Immediately I noticed the (garage) door was halfway up. You could see that someone had smashed through it driving outwards. As I pulled up I thought, 'Oh my goodness, my customer's truck.'"
Pelletier and his wife then checked out the shop but the laptop was the only thing they could see that was missing.
"No tools or anything else were missing," he said. "Just the laptop and the truck. So then we talked to the cops."
Pelletier said he went over the video feed from an exterior camera and could see the thieves trying to boost a vehicle outside the shop's fences.
"The ironic part was that the truck was there because of a previous theft," he said. "It had already been stolen. You could see the truck behind the building, they pulled the dead battery out and put it on the ground and put another battery in the truck. They rifled through another couple of trucks there."
Pelletier said it looked on the video like the thieves were going to drive away but they stopped and looked in the shop window.
"He went to the truck and grabbed a battery powered grinder and tried to open the door," he said. "You could see sparks flying on the video. It's a brass lock so it wouldn't cut. He went and got a pry bar and got in in about six minutes. They were pretty casual. Within a minute my alarm started to go off and they got hurried. They cut the chain on my overhead door because I keep it padlocked."
Pelletier then figures since they couldn't get the garage door open all the way they just drove the customer's F-150 truck right through the overhead door, which they had previously pried halfway open.
Pelletier estimates the damage at $10,000 for the shop plus the truck on top of that.
He said he feels crime has increased in the area since he moved to town 16 years ago.
"It's just pathetic," he said. "We've been here since 2003 and there is definitely an increase in crime. My theory is it's spilling out of the city. They know our RCMP are stretched thin. If you watch the video, it's six or seven minutes of them standing there trying to cut, pry and break into a building, and they're nonchalant. Plus all the time they were beside the building trying to start that (dead) truck outside."
Didsbury RCMP told the Gazette that they are currently investigating the case.
