A security camera captured a person break into a mobility equipment store in San Jose and steal a motorized scooter earlier this week.
The burglary happened at about 5:30 a.m. Monday at Re-Mobilizers.
The surveillance video shows someone pull up to the shop and spend several minutes making sure no one is watching them before smashing the glass door and taking the scooter, which is worth about $2,500.
"It was crazy," Re-Mobilizers owner Brian O'Donnell said.
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O'Donnell is in the businesses for his mom, who has polio and has faced mobility issues for years.
He said the burglary forced him to push back an appointment with a veteran on Monday.
"It threw our whole schedule off," O'Donnell said. "It really throws a lot of my customers off because they rely on us. If I’m not there, then they’re not mobile a lot of the time."
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O'Donnell said in the video a passerby scares off the thief. The thief tries to shove the scooter into their white sedan and has to leave with it hanging out of the door.
"We were able to set it up with the manufacturer so that they’re not going to be able to get parts or anything for it so it's flagged as a stolen unit now, kind of like a VIN number on a car," O'Donnell said.
San Jose police arrived shortly after the thief left and took a report. A detective will be assigned to the case.
O'Donnell hopes the thief is caught, but he is glad it wasn't worse.
"I thought he was going to probably go through our office," he said. "We’ve got a lot of customer files. We even have some money in our cash drawer, so that could have really affected us."
