SAN DIEGO — Smash-and-grab burglars targeted three San Diego shoe stores overnight, getting away with tens of thousands of dollars worth of merchandise. Two of the stores were located in shopping malls, the third was a mom-and-pop shop in Hillcrest.
“As you can see, they put a little hole right here and hopped right in. They said it was four or five guys and they just tossed the clothes outside,” said the owner of Fire Kicks in Hillcrest, who asked not to be identified.
Burglars smashed through the front wall of Fire Kicks around 4:45 a.m. and made off with an estimated $20,000 worth of merchandise, according to the owner.
“We’re in Hillcrest. We thought it would be safe. There's police 24 hours around here, you know? So, it just makes us a little uneasy with this happening,” he said.
The owner said he thinks his burglar alarm scared the thieves away. He said they were in and out in less than 10 minutes. Fortunately, they missed the high-end tennis shoes that sell for $1,500 per pair, the owner said.
Around 2:20 a.m., burglars hit the Kick Stock shoe store in the Westfield Mission Valley mall. They broke through a front window to get inside. San Diego police said “a significant amount of merchandise was stolen.” No dollar amount was given.
Then around 4 a.m., police said the same group of about four burglars attempted to break into the City Kicks shoe store at the UTC mall in University City. The attempted burglary was unsuccessful, SDPD said, and no windows were broken.
It's the same City Kicks shoe store that was burglarized back in November 2022. The suspects got away in that incident, as well, and police recovered merchandise in the parking lot.
Meanwhile, back in Hillcrest, the owner of Fire Kicks said he plans on increasing security. “It's really hard to prevent it, just gotta have safer measures in place. We're probably going to get another gate out front,” the owner said.
It looks like there could be surveillance video of the thieves breaking into the mall stores but it had not been released to the public yet when this story was published. If the video is made available, CBS 8 will work to share it with the community.
If you have any information, contact the San Diego Police Department or San Diego Crime Stoppers at 619-235-8477 to remain anonymous.
WATCH RELATED: High-end UTC Mall sneaker shop 'City Kicks' burglarized (Nov 2022)