BALTIMORE — Not once, not twice, but three times did this pair of thieves smash their way into small businesses in the middle of the night.
It happened around 2 a.m., Monday, at three separate places on Washington Boulevard in Pigtown.
"You really shouldn't be able to get away with getting into three businesses in one night," said Shareen Aarons, who works for the nonprofit "Pigtown Main Street." She says this week's break-ins bring the grand total to seven in this neighborhood for the month, six on this street alone.
"Where is the police presence at this point, and how are they gonna keep the individuals doing this from thinking they can come back and do it again in another couple of weeks?" asked Aarons.
"It is a very concerning thing for me because this is the second break-in in my store. The first happened a couple of years ago," said Aarons.
Shahzad Masood owns Birdland Mart, one of the businesses that was hit on Monday.
"The two guys - they came over here, broke this window, came inside, they tried to break this one," Masood said as he recounted what he saw in surveillance video. "They tried to hit over here four times, and they tried to hit over here, but this is bullet-proof."
After the thieves were unsuccessful at Birdland Mart, they went right across the street to Bella Roma Pizza to try their luck there. Fortunately, there was less than $50 in the cash register. But replacing the broken windows and doors can run you hundreds of dollars.
"Then they have to take up time, as you can see Bella Roma's not even open, so they're losing income right now," Aarons said.
"We are having a lot of difficulty getting products at a cheap price because we're a small corner store and we have to struggle a lot. So for us it's difficult. Any cost like this, is basically torture for us," Masood said.
The thieves are also seen in surveillance footage rummaging through Main Street Mart, stuffing their loot into a mickey mouse backpack.
"You're messing with someone else's livelihood. You know, people have to eat off this, and you're taking from them. And you're also taking from the community that supports these businesses," Aarons said.
We asked Baltimore police if the string of break-ins are related. They could only tell us -- they do not have a suspect description for the burglaries that happened earlier in the month, and a for this week, they only have a vague description based on the surveillance video posted above.
All of the break-ins are still being investigated by Baltimore police.