The Columbia Police Department arrested two juveniles last night for stealing six guns from Waldo’s Sports Center yesterday morning after breaking through the glass of the front door. The two juveniles are believed to be from Hattiesburg, and the CPD is continuing its efforts to apprehend the third perpetrator, who has been identified.
Columbia Police Det. Jonathon Martin said because the perpetrators are juveniles, the CPD cannot release their identities and that they will be prosecuted through Youth Court. They are charged with commercial burglary and trafficking in stolen firearms.
Waldo’s owner Eric Thornhill said it’s frustrating that anyone would vandalize and steal from the business and cost the business a full day’s worth of work. He estimated the incident cost the business roughly $5,000 to $6,000 between the property damage and stolen merchandise.
“It’s going to be an out-of-pocket loss. When you have something like this, it hurts everything else when we want to help with sponsorships,” Thornhill said. “It just takes away from the community.”
Thornhill praised the efforts of the CPD, which he said worked all day Tuesday gathering evidence and came back several times to provide updates and compare video surveillance.
“To me, they went well above their (call),” he said.
The community has been great to Thornhill and the Waldo’s family since the robbery. He said countless businesses and customers called throughout the day offering any type of assistance they could and that L&W Glass replaced the front door glass within an hour.
“We appreciate everyone calling and checking on us to see if we needed anything. Local businesses were checking their surveillance cameras and everything, too,” Thornhill said. “I think that’s what led to knowing where these guys went. It was a community effort for us.
“To all my customers, thank you for all the check-ins and seeing if we needed anything.”
