Thieves elude police despite SWAT team action

AUSTIN November 25, 2007 – It’s now been more than ten days since a bizarre SWAT team “standoff” around McBride’s Guns in central Austin ended with police searching the building only to discover the thieves had gotten away. Robbers absconded with $5,000 to $10,000 in jewelry and gold coins, but did not steal any weapons.

The Austin American-Statesman’s Claire Osborn reported how the November 13 robbery at McBride’s Guns (2915 San Gabriel) transpired, according to owner Joe McBride:

It took [the thieves] about 10 minutes to break the lock on the two heavy-duty steel back doors to get into the business, McBride said. A video camera inside the store showed two people wearing ski masks … The thieves smashed a glass counter to get to the coins and jewelry … The store’s security company alerted police at 4:36 a.m. Tuesday.

When the police arrived on the scene, they saw that there was forced entry and merchandise scattered around the floor, so instead of entering the building to see if the thieves were still present, they pulled back and called in the SWAT team. The SWAT team is the militarized wing of the Austin Police Department that is trained to handle urban siege situations with a combination of prudence and heavy-duty firepower.

While the SWAT team was on its way to the rescue, McBride’s security company reported a “secondary alarm” had detected movement inside the building. Soon after, the phone lines to the shop were cut, although it is unclear who severed the lines.

The SWAT team arrived at about 5:30 am. They cordoned off several blocks around McBride’s, and closed Lamar Boulevard between 29^th and 31^st Streets. The closing of this main thoroughfare effectively paralyzed traffic through central Austin, and severely disrupted many people’s Tuesday morning commute. In addition, residents, students, and workers who were unfortunate enough to be within the SWAT team’s zone of control were put on “lock-down” and forbidden to leave their buildings until the SWAT team operation was complete.

Austin police spokesperson Sgt. Joe Munoz said, “Everything led us to believe there was somebody in there, because we had the secondary motion detector go off.” Police sent a robot inside McBride’s and set off a smoke bomb to force the thieves out. The SWAT team ended their “response” to the break-in at about 2 pm when they searched the entire premises and found the thieves had already departed.

During the nine-hour “apparent standoff,” the police exploded seven canisters of tear gas inside the shop. Days after the police action, Mr. McBride said the gas still permeated the air in the building and that it would take a while to clean up the mess.

Mr. McBride says he does not believe any guns were stolen. He told KXAN-TV, “They were after some of the costume jewelry, some of the gold necklaces, and some of the coins, they weren’t after the guns …” The last time someone successfully broke into the shop was decades ago: “It happened about 25 years ago where somebody drove a back of a pick-up truck through the front of the store, and that was before we had all of these bars put up….” That thief stole about 30 handguns, and since then, steel bars were installed in front of the glass.

Although thieves got away with thousands of dollars in gold and silver, the SWAT team left the nine-hour “standoff” empty-handed.