by Guillaume Laflamme
Shawville
Apr. 7, 2024
O’Malley’s Equipment on Shawville’s Victoria Avenue was broken into on Sunday morning, and tens of thousands of dollars worth of merchandise was stolen.
The burglary, which happened at 4:30 a.m. on Sunday morning, just a week before the business’s first anniversary, went unnoticed by owner Derek O’Malley until 7:30 a.m. when he received a phone call from a neighbour informing him that the alarm at his store was going off and the front door was sitting wide open.
According to O’Malley, the thieves broke in through the front door by prying it open, breaking the store’s only door in the process.
He believes the people who broke into his store were not just regular thieves looking for some extra cash.
“It was a clean break-in and no mess. It had been scoped out before, they knew what they wanted,” O’Malley speculated. “They threw aside the lower dollar items to take the stuff that counted. They knew what was worth money. They were going straight to it.”
O’Malley said roughly $60,000 worth of high-end tools from brands such as Milwaukee and Stihl were stolen.
After reviewing the store’s surveillance footage, O’Malley believes he has a suspected vehicle on camera and has submitted the footage to Sûreté Québec.
O’Malley is asking anybody with pertinent information relating to the break-in, such as doorbell camera footage, to reach out to the police, or to him.
On Apr. 17 the store will celebrate a year since first opening.
