CONNECTICUT COMPUTERS STOLEN http://meriden.patch.com/articles/pratt-street-technology-group-offers-reward-for-help-in-catching-burglar
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Police & Fire
Pratt Street Technology Group Offers Reward For Help in Catching Burglar
Members of the New England Society of Information and Technology are trying to nab the person who allegedly broke into their workshop and stole computers and other equipment – and may have come back a week later for more.
Members of the New England Society of Information and Technology or NESIT, a technology enthusiast club in Meriden, are offering a $500 reward for information that leads to the arrest of the person who broke into their workshop and stole more than $3,000 in personal items and computer equipment on April 17 – and may have tried to do it again exactly a week later.
The group released two videos from its security cameras to Meriden Patch Monday afternoon showing one successful and one failed break-in at its workshop on the second floor of 290 Pratt St. Both feature what appears to be a man clad in dark clothing with a white t-shirt tied around his face.
Members are hoping someone in Meriden can identify the man based on his outfit and a distinctive walk seen in the second video that resembles a limp or strut.
“We think it’s the same guy – he’s dressed almost identically and he came back at the same time,” said William Reyor, president of NESIT. “If someone in Meriden knows him they might be able to identify him just by his walk…the clothes he was wearing were also unique.”
The first incident happened Sunday, April 17, at about 3 a.m. The video (which can be seen here) shows a person wearing what appears to be a headlamp walking around a pitch black room, picking up and inspecting different items.
“It took him an hour and a half – it was like he was shopping,” Reyor said.
The suspect allegedly took computers, LCD monitors, a server, other personal belongings, and a member's personal laptop with schematics and data for projects, according to Reyor. "A lot of it was data he had for different projects he was working on – so all that stuff is gone," Reyor said.
NESIT discovered the break-in the next day and contacted the Meriden police, who are reportedly investigating the incident.
Then, on Easter Sunday, April 24, at 3 a.m., cameras caught a person with a t-shirt around his head trying to wrench open the workshop’s sliding door with what looks like a crowbar. The second video (which can be seen here) was taken in the light of the hallway, making the episode easier to see. The suspect is unable to open the door and walks away with a trash can on the video. Members found this footage unexpectedly after checking security cameras the next day for another reason. They again called the Meriden Police, which sent two detectives, Reyor said.
The crimes have made it difficult for the burgeoning organization, which began in Summer 2010, to use its workshop.
“It was a huge blow to the trust people had here,” Reyor said.
The NESIT “makerspace” is part of a growing number of groups some have likened to modern-day ham radio clubs throughout the world, in which members work on their own various tech-oriented projects individually and together for fun and to further their knowledge. The NESIT labs hold twice-weekly open houses and other events for local tinkerers and mechanical enthusiasts and offer free computer clinics for the public in which anyone can bring in a computer or other device to be fixed and to learn how to fix it.
The burglary and attempted break-in had one silver lining, Reyor said. It’s given the group of technological tinkerers a new project – building security gadgets and applications to protect the space. “Everyone’s engineering security countermeasures,” Reyor said.
NESIT asks that anyone with information on the suspect call the Meriden Police at 203-630-6201.
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