The Columbia Police Department arrested a third juvenile suspect Tuesday night in the Waldo’s Sports Center robbery that occurred Sept. 16. A fourth suspect, who is believed to be the getaway driver, has been identified but has not been apprehended yet.
The suspects broke into Waldo’s early that morning by busting through the glass of the front door before hopping the counter to steal six valuable firearms. The CPD has recovered two of the firearms, and investigators report that the fourth suspect either possesses the other four firearms or knows where they are.
The first two suspects were caught the night of Sept. 16, and investigators identified the third suspect by speaking with the first two. The CPD made contact with the third suspect’s parents, who brought him to the station to turn himself in. The third suspect helped the CPD identify the fourth Tuesday night. All four suspects are male.
Capt. of Investigations Chris Brumfield said that while the first three suspects will be prosecuted through Youth Court for commercial burglary and trafficking in stolen firearms as minors, the fourth suspect could be tried as an adult following a previous serious arrest.
Waldo’s owner Eric Thornhill said last week that it’s frustrating that anyone would vandalize and steal from the business and cost the business a full day’s worth of work while trying to assist with the investigation. 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 Sept. 16 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. He said countless businesses and customers called throughout the day offering any type of assistance they could and 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.”
