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Market Street store dealing with break ins, robberies
By Joe Gorman
YOUNGSTOWN
Surveillance video shows two men who broke into a Market Street store early Thursday calmly strolling the aisles and filling a garbage bag.
The break-in about 2:10 a.m. at the 2224 Market St. Family Dollar follows a pattern dating back to July and is also the fifth major crime to be committed at the store since Oct. 13.
Three armed men robbed the store Oct. 13 and 16.
Just hours after the Oct. 13 robbery, police answered an alarm call about 1:50 a.m. Oct. 14 where two people broke a window, got inside, took several items and fled.
Footage from that break-in shows the men running inside with backpacks, taking several items then leaving.
About 12:15 a.m. Oct. 18, two men broke a window again and ran inside, this time filling their backpacks with food and electronic items. A report said the suspects “carried out the [breaking and entering] in a well calculated, seemingly pre-planned event.”
In Thursday’s break-in, the two men spent almost an hour in the store, breaking a window at 1:10 a.m. and leaving just before 2:10 a.m.
Reports noted that the company in charge of security disconnected the motion sensors since they have been emitting several false alarms.
Police did not receive an alarm call until after 4 a.m., which was cleared, reports said.
Officers were called back about 8 a.m. by a passerby who said the window had been shattered.
Chief Robin Lees said he did not a know previous alarm call had been cleared and he would look into it.
Lees said he has extra patrols in the 2200 block of Market to not only try and catch whoever is responsible, but also as a deterrent.
Messages left with the Family Dollar corporate headquarters and with a development company in Parkersburg, W.Va., Acorn Development Inc., listed as the property owner on the Mahoning County Auditor’s website, were not returned.
The break-ins at the Market Street Family Dollar stretch back to July 23. There were also break-ins Sept. 12 and 17.
All of them happened the same way as the most recent ones, with two men breaking a window to get inside, then taking several items and leaving.
The store was the scene of several shoplifting calls this year. There was an aggravated robbery at the store Jan. 1.
Councilman Anita Davis, D-6th Ward, where the store is located, said she is very concerned about what is going on there and she had voiced her concerns to Lees and Mayor Jamael Tito Brown.
She said the store is important to the neighborhood because it is close by for a lot of people who do not have the means to go somewhere else for the essentials.
“It serves the community a lot,” Davis said.