JACKSON, MS (Mississippi News Now) -
The fence outside Vermeer Mid South was a mangled mess of metal on Monday.
It's the remains of an early Sunday morning burglary. Surveillance video shows at least two thieves crashing through the store's outside fence in a dually pick-up. The men then hooked the truck up to the stump grinder and left through they hole they created in the fence. The crime only took two minutes to complete.
"We've had a few pieces of equipment stolen in the past but never where they would drive right through the fence," explained Vermeer Mid South President Dennis Vandermolen.
He says the stump grinder was valued at $50,000.
The machine needs a specific hitch and you can see the truck ride by several times in the surveillance video. Vandermolen knows his business was being cased before the burglary.
"Somebody would have to know what they were getting to go after it. It's not like they were stealing a backhoe or stealing copper out of the air conditioner or things like that. They knew exactly what they were going for."
The video shows two cars drive by while the thieves are hooking up the stump grinder.
"Somebody seen something but yet nobody has said anything. That's disappointing," says Vandermolen.
The stump grinder theft marked the second time Vermeer Mid South has been hit in a week.
Just down the street, Jackson Specialty Advertising has been hit hard by thieves as well.
Owner Ron Manning says thieves stole two air conditioning units from the side of his store, ten days apart.
He's prepared in case they come back.
"We have put steel in concrete, fortified with osmose lumber on the outside. Like something you'd see in Baghdad," is how Manning described the fortress around his air conditioning unit now.
Jackson police have not commented on how many businesses along Greenway Drive Extension have been burglarized in the past month.
No one has been arrested in connection with the thefts.
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