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SALT LAKE CITY — Unified police are asking for help Friday to identify two men suspected of burglarizing as many as two dozen businesses across the Salt Lake Valley over the past two months.
The most distinguishing characteristics of the men, who cover up from head to toe, appear to be that one uses a yellow pry bar and tucks his pants into his socks, according to Lt. Lex Bell.
“They’re in and out in under five minutes,” Bell said. “Some of what they’re doing is almost like they’ve seen it in a movie.”
Detectives believe the men have struck businesses, including many restaurants and car washes, in Salt Lake City, Murray, Midvale, Sandy, South Jordan and Riverton, and are also believed to be tied to a car theft in Magna.
Bell said the men show proficiency on par with what professional burglars might do, with one often serving as a lookout as the other pries open a door.
Surveillance video from Porcupine Pub & Grille in Salt Lake City illustrates the determination the men have shown in some of the burglaries, Bell said.
“They’re not deterred by a door they can’t get through,” Bell said. “They had the manager’s door that was closed. They couldn’t pry it open because it closed the wrong direction, so they broke out the window and were able to gain access to that room as well.”
In some of the cases, Bell said the men got away with thousands of dollars in cash and property.
At Pizza Pie Café in Midvale, manager Ed Davenport said the men didn’t get away with much, but bent the frame of the front door.
“It was more of a smash than a smash-and-grab, as far as like what we ended up experiencing,” he said.
Still, police said the men managed to raid the neighboring businesses, Jungle Jim’s Playland and Rice King.
“Whatever they did at Jungle Jim’s, it must have made them hungry and they needed both pizza and Chinese,” Davenport quipped.
Davenport said he believed the two men may slip up at some point.
“You just can’t go around smashing windows with a baseball bat or whatever and expect to do that for very long as a hobby and not at least run into some sort of trouble,” he said.
Bell said anybody with information on the cases or the people involved is asked to call Unified police at 385-468-9311.
