Break-ins are plaguing the Enumclaw Chevron.
Already this year, the gas station has been burgled six times, said manager Carmen Olea. All of this has occurred at night, when the gas station convenience store is closed, but Olea is worried that the crimes might escalate.
“I already told Jojo [the owner], you gotta do something because if they’re willing to come in the middle of the night, what makes you think they won’t come in broad daylight?” Olea said.
She cited daytime armed robberies in Auburn as a safety concern, saying she doesn’t want robberies to be the next crime committed at Chevron.
Olea said she’s considering arming herself at work due to these burglaries.
“I just wish they would stop,” she said.
Olea’s worked at the Chevron for five years and has lived in Enumclaw for 13 years, and she said she’s never seen this volume of crime.
“It’s hard to keep up with. I don’t even know which one is which now,” she said. In the last two months, there have been two different break-ins at the Enumclaw Chevron, once on June 25 and another on July 22.
The June 25 break-in resulted in about $3,500 in losses, according to Olea, and the July 22 break-in resulted in about $4,000 in losses.
At the June 25 break-in, according to Olea, she suspects the two burglars were around 14 years old. She said they broke in and stole about $2,000 of vaping devices branded “Flum.”
“They went through the window in the back, and the little kid had a backpack, and inside the backpack was a big old rock,” Olea said. “He used it to come in. It was just two little guys.”
Compared to the break-in earlier that month on June 3, resulting in stolen vaping devices valued at about $25,000 to $30,000, Olea said the June 25 break-in was a minor financial hit. During the earlier break-in, a car backed into the gas station to gain entry, which destroyed their entrance. Olea said she believes the June 25 break-in was a copycat crime of the June 3 break-in, and they’re unrelated.
During the July 22 break-in, Olea said from looking at the store’s security camera footage, there were six suspects. She said they gained entry by cutting a chain on the front door with bolt cutters, breaking the front entrance window, and then grabbing a nearby chair to reach the door handle on the other side of the broken window.
Olea said they stole money, cigarettes, snacks, and attempted to break into the ATM. She said that when the suspects got inside, one of the female suspects stole all three cash registers, and two other male suspects filled boxes with many packs and cartons of cigarettes. Besides the money and cigarettes, Olea said the suspects took ice cream, energy drinks, and many other snacks.
Olea said after they took all the money and other commodities, the group left but quickly returned with an additional truck. In the second truck, one suspect attempted to help the original suspects steal the ATM. Olea said they were unsuccessful in trying to break into the ATM, but the ATM is now unusable due to the damage caused by the burglars.
As of Aug. 1, Enumclaw Police Department Records Specialist Sarah Taylor said none of the Enumclaw Chevron burglaries have any signs of being related. However, they are still actively working the cases.
“The burglaries all have a different MO and suspect descriptions. They appear to be unrelated, but until fingerprints or additional evidence are revealed, we cannot state with certainty if any of them are related,” Taylor said. “We have reached out to other law enforcement agencies in our area to see if any have similar burglaries in their jurisdictions, and we will work any leads that are provided through other agencies. We are still actively working all cases.”
