Police Search For Brazen Thief Who Stole Pet Store Safe

Police are looking for a man who took a safe full of money right out of a business in the middle of the day.  

It happened at the A-1 Pet Emporium near Britton and May Ave. in The Village on Saturday afternoon. The store owner says the thief pretended to be a customer, and then snuck out back. But fortunately all of their surveillance cameras were rolling.

“You can see in the videos that he actually comes back here and looks around and then he comes back out,” said Trisha Clark, the store’s owner.

The video is remarkably clear and shows exactly what took place. As it turns out, the A1 Pet Emporium has several surveillance cameras both outside and inside their store, and even in their back office. And that's the only reason they know what happened to their safe.

She says the store was busy that day and her husband noticed the safe was missing about an hour after the thief left. So they went to check their surveillance video and sure enough the cameras caught the crook in the act.

“If we wouldn't have had the video we would have never known what had happened,” said Clark.

Clark says she believes they thief came into the store hoping to rob the girls at the register, but then changed his mind when he gained access to the safe. Clark even talked with store employees when he was meandering around the store.

The Clarks have already replaced the stolen safe with a new one, but would really like the old one back, since it had a day’s worth of deposits inside.

Luckily, they got a shot of the thief's getaway car - which was a bright orange ford escape with a luggage rack on top. If you have information about who this man is call The Village Police Department.