Thief breaks into donut shop
Video footage shows burglar crawling into establishment via a hole made in a vacant building next door
A thief broke into Stevenson Donuts & Bakery late Sunday night and stole an iPhone and roughly $400 from a cabinet.
Video footage shows a thief crawling into the donut shop through a hole made in the vacant building next door, in a Stevenson Ranch shopping center on Hemingway Ave.
Thuong Sauv, owner of Stevenson Donuts, said he estimates the thief broke in just after 10 p.m. and was inside for about 10 minutes.
Sauv and his wife Jamie S. Phaev got a call from their uncle who went into the shop at 11:30 p.m. Sunday night to start making donuts for the next morning.
“Who are they and why are they so brave to do that?” Jamie S. Phaev said.
The uncle asked why the couple had made such a mess in the shop before realizing a burglary had taken place, so they knew something was wrong because they had left the store clean when they locked up at 8 p.m.
There were two holes in the wall leading into the kitchen, one the thief’s first attempt and the second used to successfully break into the shop, Sauv said. The donut shop owner figures the burglar entered through the back door of the vacant building.
After a largely sleepless night for Sauv and Phaev, Stevenson Donuts opened Monday morning at 4:30 a.m. as usual.
After locals heard about the incident, community members came to show their support of the couple and buy donuts.
“This neighborhood is nice,” Phaev said. “A lot of people came.”
Sauv suggests the culprit could be one of the young adults who frequently hang out in front of the abandoned building next door, which he said has been vacant for seven years. Sauv said since there are so many people in the group who hang out in front of the abandoned store, he typically tries to avoid them.
“There are too many,” Thuong Sauv said. “I’m too scared.”
When he has called the police about the group before, all they can do is tell them to pick up their trash.