STOLEN TOOLS! San Diego, CA

BenTerrible

BenTerrible

Which way did my bullet go?
Full Member
Minuteman
May 26, 2009
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#1
On Saturday, 5/01/2021 between 4:55am and 5:07am, 2 losers pulled up, jumped out of their shitty car and broke into my brothers work truck, This occurred in the Ryland area of Ramona (San Diego Country Estates). The dirt bags got away with nearly every tool on the truck. Please be on the look out for Milwaukee/DeWalt/Hilti tools marked "SMI", "Sherwood Mechanical Inc", or "Joe H." Among the power tools were a ton of hand tools/tool bags.

This is a huge loss, over $20K in hand/specialty tools.

I have included some nice portraits of these absolute pieces of shit for everyone's enjoyment. As you can see, these night bitch bandits came prepared and are most likely making a career out of this, as they arrived looking like Dumb and Dumber "Night Stalker Edition" wearing full ski gear.

I am offering a $1000 cash reward to anyone who responds with information leading to the return of these tools. Many have sentimental value and have been in our family for years. If you have any information about this please contact the San Diego Sheriff and reference case #21118137.
 

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#6
My work van has been broken into 3 times, fortunately I have puck locks on all the doors and the truck cant be stolen easily so they just damage shit trying.

Gotta lock your shit up good.
 
#7
When i lived in cali, my vehicles got broken into or stolen at least once a year. Fucking shithole. San diego does not leave fond memories for me...... except saritas (casa de oro) taco shop.
 
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#8
That sucks! I hope you get them. We just moved out of the Ryland homes in December. I'm surprised, we never had any issues up there
 
#9
shame electrocution is not legal seeing that crook light up like a Christmas tree would have been a funny video as sparks fly out his eyes and ars . hope you had your tools marked engraved or something insurance good luck getting them back you never know you could get lucky .
 
#10
I have a plumbing company about 15yrs ago I had every cordless and power tool stolen off my work truck didn’t know until the next morning when my helper went to get the tools off the truck and they were gone. The previous day on the way home I stopped at a Walmart so it either happened there or at my house. I never took the time to lock my tool boxes, but from that day forward I do and haven’t gotten hit since except my storage unit last year.

Just curious did he have any of those tool boxes locked?
 
#15
I fired a sub that showed up with a Bosch jack hammer that had a rental # etched on it. Either he stole it from the rental company or bought or stole it from the scumbag that originally stole it. Either way, I hate thieves and don't want that shit on my jobs.

BTW OP, how did they break in your brother's locked tool boxes? Looks like they just opened the doors.
 
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#16
Yes, everything was locked up.

These guys had keys. We have a ton of footage from the camera along with footage from the neighborhood cameras of them scoping out the place. We are still gathering all of the footage to be prepared to update SD Sheriff Detectives who are coming back out today.

I was told by a few that these locks on these service beds are likely to use the same key across them all, which makes no sense to me if true!
 
#18
Damn dude! Sorry to hear about your tools! I grew up in the estates. Out of all the neighborhoods in Ramona, it seems to be the best one and not have much crime. I left Ramona in '09 but still have all my family there.
 
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#20
missed said:
The thugs are moving into Ramona, used to just be the random meth heads.....we left 18 years ago.
Click to expand...
A buddy lives in rural ramona still. I had a few friends up there and visited that town often, running up and down that dangerous ass hill as fast as i could. Also left 18 years ago.
 
#21
TexPatriot said:
I fired a sub that showed up with a Bosch jack hammer that had a rental # etched on it. Either he stole it from the rental company or bought or stole it from the scumbag that originally stole it. Either way, I hate thieves and don't want that shit on my jobs.

BTW OP, how did they break in your brother's locked tool boxes? Looks like they just opened the doors.
Click to expand...
All my expensive tools are old rentals. Bought them from home depots or rental places when they have reached their half life or whatever. If he bought a truly stolen item, don’t you think he would scratch that out?
 
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#23
Jgunner said:
All my expensive tools are old rentals. Bought them from home depots or rental places when they have reached their half life or whatever. If he bought a truly stolen item, don’t you think he would scratch that out?
Click to expand...
No,l I don't think he would have scratched that out. He stole all kinds of tools from me and would argue they were his.
 
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#24
Damn, hope you had insurance on them.

This is so common in CA, problem is attempting to get the tools back, the police don’t care and even if the bad guy dropped his ID on camera, the PD wouldn’t do anything to help, but if you were to try to do ANYTHING to recover your property yourself you’ll have much more than 20k in legal damages because that the police will be Johnny on the spot to do something about that. Just be thankful you didn’t catch them in the act and try to stop them, you’d be in jail right now.

I don’t think I made it a single year in CA without something getting stolen, and I was very good about locking my stuff and didn’t even go into the bad areas. Shame, such a beautiful state
 
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#25
TurboTrout said:
Damn, hope you had insurance on them.

This is so common in CA, problem is attempting to get the tools back, the police don’t care and even if the bad guy dropped his ID on camera, the PD wouldn’t do anything to help, but if you were to try to do ANYTHING to recover your property yourself you’ll have much more than 20k in legal damages because that the police will be Johnny on the spot to do something about that. Just be thankful you didn’t catch them in the act and try to stop them, you’d be in jail right now.

I don’t think I made it a single year in CA without something getting stolen, and I was very good about locking my stuff and didn’t even go into the bad areas. Shame, such a beautiful state
Click to expand...
The police don't do much about stuff like this. We caught a tweaker on my job stealing tools and copper and was running down the street with it. We saw the house he lived in and told the police. They said there were many complaints about the people who lived there stealing things but they could not do anything about it. Our company just wrote it off as a loss
 
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#26
Punkur67 said:
The police don't do much about stuff like this. We caught a tweaker on my job stealing tools and copper and was running down the street with it. We saw the house he lived in and told the police. They said there were many complaints about the people who lived there stealing things but they could not do anything about it. Our company just wrote it off as a loss
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Fucking California

One of the reasons I moved out of there a long time ago, despite being one of the most beautiful states and best for outdoor activities, having awesome food (tri tip in the 805, so carne asida with proper salsa, to the sushi, etc), and the best looking women in the US, between the crime culture, useless and very overpriced all things government, taxes, etc, unless you’re a millionaire and can shrug off all the taxes and hire your own security, it’s just not worth it.
 
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#27
BenTerrible said:
On Saturday, 5/01/2021 between 4:55am and 5:07am, 2 losers pulled up, jumped out of their shitty car and broke into my brothers work truck, This occurred in the Ryland area of Ramona (San Diego Country Estates). The dirt bags got away with nearly every tool on the truck. Please be on the look out for Milwaukee/DeWalt/Hilti tools marked "SMI", "Sherwood Mechanical Inc", or "Joe H." Among the power tools were a ton of hand tools/tool bags.

This is a huge loss, over $20K in hand/specialty tools.

I have included some nice portraits of these absolute pieces of shit for everyone's enjoyment. As you can see, these night bitch bandits came prepared and are most likely making a career out of this, as they arrived looking like Dumb and Dumber "Night Stalker Edition" wearing full ski gear.

I am offering a $1000 cash reward to anyone who responds with information leading to the return of these tools. Many have sentimental value and have been in our family for years. If you have any information about this please contact the San Diego Sheriff and reference case #21118137.
Click to expand...
I’m sure they know your brother through work or are from the area. One guy is dressed young, sagging pants, tight jeans or tight rolled and chucks or pumas. The other guy looks like he lifts weights.

are there any traffic light cameras or gas stations near by or other neighbors with cameras?
 
#28
Theft from job sites is a real problem and we get hit at least once on every job. Most of the thefts are inside jobs or a relative or friend. They know exactly what conex to hit and what tools to steal. Backhoes. Bobcat's compressors also popular with most winding up in Mexico. Even with cameras showing the theft the cops just fill out a report and nothing happens. Big drywall contractor we use curtailed the problem somewhat by charging the employees for tools they checked out which were stolen. Cut out lots of the inside crap.
 
#29
TurboTrout said:
Damn, hope you had insurance on them.

This is so common in CA, problem is attempting to get the tools back, the police don’t care and even if the bad guy dropped his ID on camera, the PD wouldn’t do anything to help, but if you were to try to do ANYTHING to recover your property yourself you’ll have much more than 20k in legal damages because that the police will be Johnny on the spot to do something about that. Just be thankful you didn’t catch them in the act and try to stop them, you’d be in jail right now.

I don’t think I made it a single year in CA without something getting stolen, and I was very good about locking my stuff and didn’t even go into the bad areas. Shame, such a beautiful state
Click to expand...
I don’t know what they (police) can do. So I don’t understand your particular distain and tone.

San Diego is a big city. 50% chance those tools are in Mexico. A judge even in this day and age isn’t going to sign a warrant to kick in the door of every person the victim points a finger at. And they shouldn’t.

Gloves were used so no finger prints to run for local priors. So even forensics is out of the question. If it was a random hit by random people, then there is no suspects to investigate and it ends there. I don’t know what else you want.

Lastly committing a crime onto those who committed a crime on to you is still a crime. When taking things into your own hands, you assume all responsibility for the outcome. To include being caught or not.
 
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#31
Matches Malone said:
I don’t know what they (police) can do. So I don’t understand your particular distain and tone.

San Diego is a big city. 50% chance those tools are in Mexico. A judge even in this day and age isn’t going to sign a warrant to kick in the door of every person the victim points a finger at. And they shouldn’t.

Gloves were used so no finger prints to run for local priors. So even forensics is out of the question. If it was a random hit by random people, then there is no suspects to investigate and it ends there. I don’t know what else you want.

Lastly committing a crime onto those who committed a crime on to you is still a crime. When taking things into your own hands, you assume all responsibility for the outcome. To include being caught or not.
Click to expand...

Police work.

As myself and others have said, even if you hand the criminals to the cops on a silver platter, it’s like fast food “do you want a police report with that”. With how many cameras are out there I’m sure they could get the plate off the car, frankly if they would care remotely as much about this type of thing as traffic tickets and being covid nazis, that would be great.

In CA you’re more likely to get away with stealing a trademans living (tools) than violating the carpool/electric vehicle lane BS.
 
#32
BenTerrible said:
Yes, everything was locked up.

These guys had keys. We have a ton of footage from the camera along with footage from the neighborhood cameras of them scoping out the place. We are still gathering all of the footage to be prepared to update SD Sheriff Detectives who are coming back out today.

I was told by a few that these locks on these service beds are likely to use the same key across them all, which makes no sense to me if true!
Click to expand...
Sorry for your brothers loss, that really sucks.
I installed pickup flatbeds for over 25 years.
The underbed toolboxes that came with all used the same key.
I have no firsthand knowledge of service bodies but considering the number that are out there, it wouldn't surprise me if they shared a key also.
Factory locks are only there to keep the honest people out.
Best to design your own like DarnYankeeUSMC shows above
Best of luck in finding the scum and recovering the tools.
 
#33
TurboTrout said:
Police work.

As myself and others have said, even if you hand the criminals to the cops on a silver platter, it’s like fast food “do you want a police report with that”. With how many cameras are out there I’m sure they could get the plate off the car, frankly if they would care remotely as much about this type of thing as traffic tickets and being covid nazis, that would be great.

In CA you’re more likely to get away with stealing a trademans living (tools) than violating the carpool/electric vehicle lane BS.
Click to expand...
I just mentioned the police work and where it would end. I liked how you ignored that. Most of the cameras don’t work. The OPs camera showed two masked men. Lol what do you want?
If the police pulled evidence and a suspect out of their ass then you’d be crying about police corruption. Lol pick an struggle.
 
#34
Matches Malone said:
I just mentioned the police work and where it would end. I liked how you ignored that. Most of the cameras don’t work. The OPs camera showed two masked men. Lol what do you want?
If the police pulled evidence and a suspect out of their ass then you’d be crying about police corruption. Lol pick an struggle.
Click to expand...

Run the plate, I promise you it’s on a traffic or other home camera, follow that lead, again if I have a mask on and commit a traffic offense betcha it’ll end up getting back to me.

Or take 80% of the police doing traffic nonsense and have them spend their time solving crime that involve a real victim.

I’d have no issue with police running plates and following leads to get a tradesmans stolen tools back, but police have a DILLIGAF attitude on such matters, but zero tolerance for a business opening during covid, or for anything traffic, yeah, not winning the hearts and minds. But that’s a different topic.
 
#35
sandhiller said:
Sorry for your brothers loss, that really sucks.
I installed pickup flatbeds for over 25 years.
The underbed toolboxes that came with all used the same key.
I have no firsthand knowledge of service bodies but considering the number that are out there, it wouldn't surprise me if they shared a key also.
Factory locks are only there to keep the honest people out.
Best to design your own like DarnYankeeUSMC shows above
Best of luck in finding the scum and recovering the tools.
Click to expand...
Thats like Caterpillar or John Deere. Having a JD or Cat key allows you to start a multitude of equipment.
 
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#36
Hit up Kobey's swap meet this weekend and you might find your tools. Sucks but you need to spend a bit of money with a truck like that and harden up the target a bit with better locks and security systems. I have lived in various areas around San Diego from 93-10 and never had much of an issue. Out here in the IE I had one of the gas caps taken off of one of my trucks but that is it. Not sure where some of you hang out to the point where you had stuff stolen every year but you need to pick a better neighborhood... :)
 
#38
Hairball said:
Hit up Kobey's swap meet this weekend and you might find your tools. Sucks but you need to spend a bit of money with a truck like that and harden up the target a bit with better locks and security systems. I have lived in various areas around San Diego from 93-10 and never had much of an issue. Out here in the IE I had one of the gas caps taken off of one of my trucks but that is it. Not sure where some of you hang out to the point where you had stuff stolen every year but you need to pick a better neighborhood... :)
Click to expand...

Or move out of north Mexico.

I miss the women, food and countryside, but CA is a strict visit only place for me now.
 
#39
TurboTrout said:
Run the plate, I promise you it’s on a traffic or other home camera, follow that lead, again if I have a mask on and commit a traffic offense betcha it’ll end up getting back to me.

Or take 80% of the police doing traffic nonsense and have them spend their time solving crime that involve a real victim.

I’d have no issue with police running plates and following leads to get a tradesmans stolen tools back, but police have a DILLIGAF attitude on such matters, but zero tolerance for a business opening during covid, or for anything traffic, yeah, not winning the hearts and minds. But that’s a different topic.
Click to expand...
It sounds like your using conjectures for maybe and could be’s soaked in bias, virtue signaling and fallacy.

Notice I’m not talking about any individualism of policing, desensitization or any other counter argument to how police or what police are or are not. I’m just explaining that in the process, there’s nothing to be done that can be done.

Most cities traffic cams don’t work, especially in CA. Other areas up north and in the deserts sometimes don’t even have traffic cameras.

If the OP knows the suspected persons plate number than I missed it or he needs to say so. I don’t know if you been stationed or lived in San Diego but NOT a lot of folk have 24 hour surveillance looking out into the street.
Things aren’t like the movies. Big brother isn’t just out there on every corner staring at you, ready for the police to review. If it was a slam dunk easy arrest I’m sure they would have detained both dudes by now. The OP can correct me if I’m wrong.

Either way, they’d probably still need a warrant to seize video evidence from random sources. Even if you ran down the vehicle, it is alone not solid evidence that any one person committed said crime. Maybe they find the tools on the property registered to the vehicle but if not…no case…waste of manpower and the OP is still out his tools.
 
#40
Matches Malone said:
It sounds like your using conjectures for maybe and could be’s soaked in bias, virtue signaling and fallacy.

Notice I’m not talking about any individualism of policing, desensitization or any other counter argument to how police or what police are or are not. I’m just explaining that in the process, there’s nothing to be done that can be done.

Most cities traffic cams don’t work, especially in CA. Other areas up north and in the deserts sometimes don’t even have traffic cameras.

If the OP knows the suspected persons plate number than I missed it or he needs to say so. I don’t know if you been stationed or lived in San Diego but NOT a lot of folk have 24 hour surveillance looking out into the street.
Things aren’t like the movies. Big brother isn’t just out there on every corner staring at you, ready for the police to review. If it was a slam dunk easy arrest I’m sure they would have detained both dudes by now. The OP can correct me if I’m wrong.

Either way, they’d probably still need a warrant to seize video evidence from random sources. Even if you ran down the vehicle, it is alone not solid evidence that any one person committed said crime. Maybe they find the tools on the property registered to the vehicle but if not…no case…waste of manpower and the OP is still out his tools.
Click to expand...

Lol, where on gods green earth did you get “virtue signaling” out of that?!

And most people who own homes who install cameras in CA hate thieves, and I don’t think you’d need a warrant if it was to catch a thief in their area. “This happened on this date, we’d like to see your footage to try to catch the burglar in your area”
 
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#41
BenTerrible said:
Yes, everything was locked up.

These guys had keys. We have a ton of footage from the camera along with footage from the neighborhood cameras of them scoping out the place. We are still gathering all of the footage to be prepared to update SD Sheriff Detectives who are coming back out today.

I was told by a few that these locks on these service beds are likely to use the same key across them all, which makes no sense to me if true!
Click to expand...


They run the stock locks on a rotation. Chances are there are about 15 different keys on any given service body. The CH751 is probably the most common key in existence, and yet it's still used on "secure" lock boxes and tool boxes every day.

Lock Picking Lawyer on youtube, he goes over stuff like this. Deviant Olam is another good one on "penetration testing" and how they get into stuff that's supposedly secure with little to no trouble.


Valuable heirloom tools are kept inside my shop. The truck gets it's own set and is insured for replacement value. It sucks, but service body's aren't very secure, they only look like it. I'd recommend getting a new set of lock cylinders keyed by a smith to something unique to stop the random "check the key" attack.


TexPatriot said:
Thats like Caterpillar or John Deere. Having a JD or Cat key allows you to start a multitude of equipment.
Click to expand...

They're changing that now. Our older stuff has common keys, but the new stuff has chipped keys and pass-codes. What kills me is we have a skid-steer that's been sitting on a site for over 6 months, with no key required and the pass-code is on a label next to the panel. The owner kept forgetting it so and it was too hard for him to look on the data plate. Sat in the snow for 4 months next to a Costco with constant traffic, and nobody so much as moved it. I was hoping the pile of crap would get stolen so I'd never had to run it again.
 
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#42
Sorry to here about your brother’s truck getting broken into. I live on the Country estates side that backs up to Ryland. I’ll keep my eyes open as I’m usually walking my dog about that time. Any description of the vehicle they drove?
 
#43
chevy_man said:
They're changing that now. Our older stuff has common keys, but the new stuff has chipped keys and pass-codes. What kills me is we have a skid-steer that's been sitting on a site for over 6 months, with no key required and the pass-code is on a label next to the panel. The owner kept forgetting it so and it was too hard for him to look on the data plate. Sat in the snow for 4 months next to a Costco with constant traffic, and nobody so much as moved it. I was hoping the pile of crap would get stolen so I'd never had to run it again.
Click to expand...
Years ago when I was an equipment operator for a company I was sent to a new jobsite to do a bunch of excavation. I was told a John Deere 410 backhoe / loader would be there for me to use. When I got there I found a brand new machine just as described, never used with plastic still on the seats.

I started it with my John Deer key and used it all week. Friday, payday, the foreman pulled up and asked where'd I'd got the backhoe. I told him it was parked right where they said it would be. He said thats not even our machine. Turned out the machine I was supposed to be using was some derelict old 410 sitting at the other side of the construction site.
 
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#44
TurboTrout said:
Lol, where on gods green earth did you get “virtue signaling” out of that?!

And most people who own homes who install cameras in CA hate thieves, and I don’t think you’d need a warrant if it was to catch a thief in their area. “This happened on this date, we’d like to see your footage to try to catch the burglar in your area”
Click to expand...
You’re saying the cops are lazy/bad/not winning hearts and minds etc and that your personal opinion is morally right in a public setting. Virtue signaling in its purest definition. Lol

People who own homes who install cameras sentence suggest that people who don’t install cameras love thieves. I know that’s not what you’re saying but that bit of knowledge you’re imposing of most California’s who install cameras has nothing to do with police procedure.

It doesn’t give any counter argument to my personal experience with not many people in San Diego having security cameras facing the streets with 24/7 surveillance. Regardless of if they love or hate thieves.

It doesn’t not add value to the what can the police do to further help the OP. Maybe people have a ring camera but it does not offer 24 hour security and runs off motion detection. It doesn’t necessarily mean that there’s a camera facing the street. Or had an angle on the plates.
I’m 100% sure the OP has relayed all footage he has to the fuz.

I’m not trying to give you a hard time but you seem to have lost faith in police, and you seem to know how to do police work better than the people on the actual job. I was just following up to see if you had anything useful that would help the OP. Here is the AO. There are no traffic cams in the area. So there now your left relying that someone had a cctv and police neglected to check it because they are big meanies in a city of 1.4 million people, excluding unaccounted for illegals.
 

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#45
It would be easy to attach a dual camera to the top with simple 'person' or even motion detection that alerts when 'activated'... a reciever in the house that sets off an alarm if it doesn't get an update from the one on the vehicle. This can probably be done for under $30 total.
 
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