WASHINGTON COMPUTERS STOLEN FROM BUSINESSES SUV used as battering ram in store break-ins- Columbian.com:

Thursday, May 17, 2007
BY JOHN BRANTON, Columbian staff writer

A thief used a 14-year-old SUV to smash his way into a convenience store in the Rose Village neighborhood and a Minnehaha computer shop over the weekend, police said.

The cost of stolen items, and damage to the buildings, will total several thousand dollars, the business operators said.

The crimes occurred a scant 18 minutes apart at the S & S Mart, 3300 S St., and Bits 'n Bytes Computer Systems, 4420 N.E. St. Johns Road, according to Vancouver Police Department reports.

The break-ins, which happened only about a mile apart, are believed related and were referred to detectives. As of Wednesday night, police had reported no arrest.

Shortly after 5 a.m. Saturday, officers were sent to the convenience store to check out an alarm. They found the front door and cinder-block wall smashed in, a report said.

The store's video system showed a green 1993 Jeep Cherokee back up and crash into the door, and a white man who wore a large red coat with a broad black stripe across the shoulders.

The man, who appeared to be 5 feet 10 inches tall and 200 pounds, had what looked like a plastic bag over his head.

The video images also caught what may have been the Jeep's Oregon license plate, which officers traced to an Orchards-area apartment complex.

The store's owner told officers that about $300 worth of cigarettes of various brands were stolen, and estimated it would cost $5,000 to repair the building.

Less than 20 minutes later, officers were sent to investigate an alarm at the computer shop.

Once again, police found that someone had used a vehicle to ram a side window of the store to get inside.

Officers also took as evidence a piece of a vehicle's taillight, discovered in a pile of broken glass outside the window. This time, the shop had no operational video system, a report said.

Ken Huckaby, the shop's owner, told police that about 19 laptop computers were missing. Their brands included Dell, Gateway, Toshiba, IBM, Acer and Compaq, the report said.

On Wednesday, Huckaby told The Columbian the computers were worth about $4,500, and estimated it would cost several thousand dollars to repair the damage to the shop.

Huckaby said he has some insurance on the stolen merchandise, and that the building's owner has some insurance.

John Branton covers crime and law enforcement. Reach him at 360-759-8012 or

john.branton@columbian.com