Click here if you’re having trouble viewing this video on a mobile device.
LOS GATOS — The hunt is on for three men who broke into the Summit Store near Los Gatos early Monday morning and have since been dubbed the “Beavis and Butt-Head Bandits” because they were caught on camera trying to conceal their identities with their shirts.
Ben Abeln, the general manager, said his alarm company called him at 2:30 a.m. to report motion inside the specialty grocery store at 24197 Summit Road. He arrived just in time to see the suspects driving away.
The suspects were savvy enough to sneak around the front of the store and break in through a warehouse door, Abeln said, but once inside, cameras captured them using their shirts to cover their faces with limited success. One is even seen pulling his shirt over his head like Beavis, a dimwitted character in the 1990s animated show “Beavis and Butt-head.”
“They weren’t exactly the most intelligent crew,” Abeln said. “That’s why we’ve dubbed them the ‘Beavis and Butt-Head Bandits.'”
The footage also shows one suspect fumble with a cash register, even shaking it like a piggy bank, while the others clumsily gather up cartons of cigarettes and cigarette lighters.
Abeln pegged the loss at $4,000 to $5,000. He said his in-laws, Darrell and Karen Osborn, have owned the store since 1976 and the burglary is the first of its kind in more than 15 years.
While the suspects looked familiar, Abeln could not identify them. But he is hoping someone else can and is offering a $500 reward for information that leads to their arrest. The Santa Cruz County Sheriff’s Office is also investigating the burglary, he said.
At the very least, Abeln hopes the suspects see the footage he uploaded to the store’s Facebook page. One video in particular had been shared more than 470 times as of Tuesday night.
“Hopefully,” he said, “I can make them squirm and sweat enough to make them think twice about doing this sort of thing again and possibly save someone else a headache somewhere down the road.”
Anyone with information about the burglary can contact Ben Abeln at 831-234-7981.
