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As families settled in to their spots along the parade route in Salt Lake City last night, a pair of thieves went on the prowl.
Two men took a personal laptop from a credit union just before the building was locked. The owner is desperate to gets his computer back.
Few of us can afford to lose our computers. We store big chunks of our lives there. This computer theft victim has an even bigger concern, but he has good surveillance video that just might help capture the culprits.
Around 6:00 last night, the parade crowd grew on the 600 block of 200 East. Inside the Mountain America Credit Union, security guard Andy Gustafson took a call that alerted him to move people off the steps out front. He went to do that and left his personal computer right under a security camera."The computer only cost about $1,000. The stuff that was on the computer has taken me months, hundreds of hours and thousands of dollars," he said.
As Gustafson headed out, two thieves walked in the front door at 6:03. Gustafson showed us the video.
The thieves roamed around, went up a floor to Gustafson's security area and spotted the laptop. They left, returned by the stairs, and thought they were off camera. One of the thieves pulled the computer off the desk by its cord.
Gustafson said, "Since something had been messed with on my desk about six months back, I changed the security camera so it looked at my desk more. So we got good video of them, even though they thought they were out of sight."
On that computer were family photos and hours of work on medical school applications, with deadlines quickly approaching. Gustafson said, "Anybody who has gone through the medical school application process knows how much it costs to go through that process."Eleven minutes after they arrived, the thieves went out the door and seemed to check whether their escape was clear. They came back, tucked into the stairwell, and then left with Gustafson's laptop in a knapsack.
"History of the last two years of my life," Gustafson said.
The heavy man with the mustache on the video has a tattoo on his right calf. The slimmer man with light, or no hair wore a brace on his right wrist.
Without that computer, Gustafson may have to rule out certain schools and start applying from scratch. "It's a grueling process," Gustafson said.
Police say they are investigating and may discover other victims if the thieves were busy at the end of business Wednesday.
E-mail: jboal@ksl.com
