WEST OLIVE, MI (WHTC-AM/FM) – Detectives with the Ottawa County Sheriff’s Department are investigating a pair of overnight cell phone store burglaries that may be connect with a string of similar incidents elsewhere in West Michigan.
According to Captain Mark Bennett, the first of the two crimes occurred on Monday, when deputies were called shortly after 4 AM to the Verizon outlet in a strip mall off of Cottonwood Drive in Jenison between Chicago Drive and Baldwin Street in Jenison. Around 16 hundred dollars worth of smart phone inventory was taken.
The second incident was noted just after 6:30 AM on Tuesday, when the T-Mobile retailer located in another strip mall, this time off of Lake Michigan Drive east of 60th Avenue in Allendale, was victimized. In this break-in, “there does not appear to have been anything taken, as the phones were secured in another location,” Bennett said in a department statement released on Tuesday afternoon.
Both stores were unoccupied at the time of the crimes, and a front window was smashed in each occasion. Bennett said that his detectives, “have been in contact with neighboring agencies,” as they believe that the incidents are related to similar burglaries elsewhere in West Michigan.
However, a direct armed robbery of a clerk at a Cricket Wireless store on Holland’s North Side, conducted before the business opened on Monday morning in the vicinity of North Park Drive and James Street, is not believed to be related to these break ins.
There have been no suspects taken into custody in any of these incidents. Anyone with any information is asked to contact Ottawa County Silent Observer.
