OKC Homeowner Catches Gun-Stealing Thieves On Camera

The homeowner says he had just recently installed the security cameras in his home, which captured a clear shot of the thieves as they cased his home late last month.

Monday, October 7th 2013, 5:59 pm

By: News 9


Oklahoma City police need our help to identify two thieves who took several high powered rifles from a home near Western Avenue and Memorial. Luckily, the homeowner had surveillance cameras rolling.

The homeowner tells us that on that video, you can actually hear the thieves ringing the doorbell and knocking on the door. And when nobody answers, that's when they make their move.

"I saw that I had a notification, that there was movement in the house," said Mike Craig, the homeowner and owner of the guns. "But I had that before, and it was often a false alarm. But I looked at this one this time, and low and behold there were people in the house!"

The homeowner says he had just recently installed the security cameras in his home and is now thankful he did since they got a clear shot of the thieves as they cased his home late last month.

The thieves broke in through the back door. In fact, you can still see their shoe print where they kicked in the door. The video shows one of the thieves sneaking into the living room. You can see he's wearing gloves and looking around the place.

Fast forward a bit, and you see his partner grabbing an assault rifle and looking out the front window to see if anyone's coming. In all they manage to get eight guns, hundreds of dollars in cash, and even manage to swipe the camera!

"Anytime you have a situation like this, where there are weapons obviously in the wrong hands, it's something we take very seriously," said Sgt. Jennifer Wardlow with the Oklahoma City Police Department. "We want to get these guys caught, hopefully get these weapons recovered, and back to their rightful owner."

Even the security sticker on the door did little to deter these thieves. You can see one of them dressed all in black carrying an assault rifle, which was part of Mike Craig's collection.

"They got away with eight guns, two handguns and six rifles," said Craig.

Craig says he's not only a gun collector, but a competitive shooter - and he had many of his rifles on display. He states several of the guns left behind are actually more valuable than the stolen guns, since they are from the Civil War and Vietnam era.

"They didn't take any of my long guns, they took all the guns that were black," said Craig. "They probably had the highest street value and could be unloaded quickly."

But Craig still wonders why they targeted his home.

"It did look very suspicious, like it was some kind of an inside job," said Craig. " I don't know if they got lucky, or they knew about them ahead of time."

But luckily for Craig, the camera got a clear shot of one of the thieves before he ripped it down.

"I think the camera probably scared them off," said Craig.

Craig says he has replaced the camera that was stolen, and he's also upgraded his security system. So it will actually contact police immediately should anyone try to break inside again.

Craig says a neighbor did notice a dark green sedan with two young black males cruising up and down their street the day before the burglary.

The thieves also got away with hundreds of dollars in cash. Craig says he's offering a $2,000 reward for information leading to the arrest and conviction of these gun stealing thieves.

If you recognize the men in the video, call Crime Stoppers at 405-235-7300.

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