Thursday May 26, 2011 at approximately 11:25 pm Sonitrol Pacific Operator Mike Young received audio activations from the back office at the World’s Largest Pawn Shop, immediately followed by multiple trips from the rear door. He heard loud crashing and then ongoing frantic movement inside, while dispatching the Police. When Mike notified the dispatcher that this was a “burglary in progress”, she asked how he knew. After telling her that we had live audio in the store and could hear someone ransacking the place she mentioned that they were extremely busy tonight with multiple units out on calls but that several officers were being diverted to respond to ours.
When Steve Smith of the Fruitland Police Dept. heard that Sonitrol Pacific could hear the break in, he proceeded to the business and saw the get away vehicle just leaving. Given that the police arrived just in the nick of time there’s no doubt that audio detection and verification literally made the difference between arrest with our customer’s property recovered and the suspects getting away.
Bill Lewis, the General Manager of Sonitrol Pacific’s Boise office was able to follow up with the owner of the World’s Largest Pawn Shop the next morning. He learned that the crooks had started fires in Payette (about 10 miles from Fruitland) to distract all the police away from The Worlds Largest Pawn Shop. Our Customer did not hear his phone ringing during the night and was awakened by the police when they came to his home. The officers escorted him to where they had the vehicle pulled over to identify guns valued at $10,000. All Items were recovered.