Scott Johnson has been charged with burglary, criminal mischief and theft for a break-in at the Bos Landen Golf Club in Pella, Iowa, after a camera captured him trying unsuccessfully for five minutes to use a crowbar to break the shop’s back-door lock, before then using the tool to smash through the door’s double-pane glass. Previously, Johnson had been caught on video breaking into the Fore Seasons Golf Center in Newton, Iowa and stealing a donation jar with $2,000 in cash.
Police used surveillance video to connect a Newton, Iowa man to multiple golf club thefts, television station KCCI of Des Moines, Iowa reported.
Police in Pella, Iowa charged 26-year-old Scott Johnson with burglary, criminal mischief and theft for a break-in at the pro shop at Bos Landen Golf Club, KCCI reported, after surveillance video showed Johnson using a crowbar to try to break the shop’s back-door lock.
After about five minutes of failed attempts, the suspect then used the crowbar to successfully break through the double-pane glass door.
“He just stepped back, cracked the outer glass and then also shattered the interior glass along this whole pro shop floor,” Keith Kriz, Bos Landen’s General Manager, told KCCI.
“To say [there was glass] all over the floor is an understatement,” Kriz said. “Really, it was just carpeted with glass.”
After the suspect smashed through the back door, police said, he attempted to shield his face. But every movement he made was captured on one of 16 surveillance cameras placed throughout the golf resort, KCCI reported.
Kriz said Johnson went straight for the cash box behind the counter after finally getting into the shop. “He knew where it was and where it was going, and pretty much had a good scope of the place before he entered the premises,” Kriz said.
It turns out that Johnson has a history of smash-and-grab burglaries at local golf clubs, KCCI reported. Surveillance video from Fore Seasons Golf Center in Newton, Iowa showed Johnson swiping a donation jar in July, officials said. For that break-in, he was in and out of the Fore Seasons shop in less than 60 seconds.
“We had $2,000 cash taken and that didn’t include, of course, the door that he damaged [or] our computer system that he damaged,” said Dawn Peters of Fore Seasons.
Police arrested Johnson for that offense in late July, KCCI reported, but he was released before a court hearing, and it didn’t take long before he was back to his old schemes.
“I was willing the first time to forgive and say it was, you know, maybe a mistake or a bad decision he had made,” Peters told KCCI. “But obviously this is a lifestyle for him.”
To view the video that led to Johnson’s arrest for the Bos Landen burglary, go to http://www.kcci.com/news/police-connect-thief-to-golf-club-breakins/37205526
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