Flower-shop burglar's unusual - fuzzy - haul
SAN LEANDRO, Calif. (KTVU) - "It's just insane. Why would you steal teddy bears from a florist?" asked Lorena Sanchez, who runs the flower shop. "Seriously."
In the video, you can see him the intruder walk outside, his arms full of teddy bears. Once he got to his car, he stuffed the stuffies inside.
The family-run store at the corner of East 14th and Davis streets has been hit before. But never anything like this. After reviewing the surveillance footage, they have their theories.
"I sincerely believe that it was because he was in trouble with his lady or something," Sanchez's daughter, Vanessa Sanchez said with a laugh.
It all began at about 3 in the morning on Thursday. The man casually walks by the shop, and the glass doors suddenly break. Police say they believe he fired a BB gun, which can be seen in his hand.
"He walked by, shot his BB gun, kept walking," Vanessa Sanchez said.
After waiting 10 minutes for any alarm to ring, he stole the teddy bears, then went back inside and stole flower arrangements.
"He actually opened the cooler door where he walked in, grabbed bunches and bunches of roses wrapped up," Lorena Sanchez said.
Then he stole even more teddy bears.
"He had different motives," Vanessa Sanchez said. "A real thief, they're here for the money. They're not here for the teddy bears and the roses."
At one point, he ran into a door.
"Oops! Wrong door!" Vanessa Sanchez said.
The bumbling burglar did steal money. But not much. At night, the store leaves only coins behind in the cash register.
"Roughly how many coins?" Lorena Sanchez asked her daughter.
"Like, five dollars," she replied, laughing.
"No, I'd say maybe about 20 dollars worth of coins," Lorena Sanchez said.
Mother and daughter can laugh about this caper now, but they can barely - or bearly - understand his motivation.
"I mean, it's ridiculous," Lorena Sanchez said. "Why would you want to come to a florist and take our flowers? I mean we work so hard here to make other people happy?"