Juveniles making Colorado Springs officers’ jobs difficult

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. (KKTV) – Colorado Springs Police say they’re doing their best to crack down on the latest crime trend, smash and grabs.

They tell us since January, there have been 28 smash and grabs in the city. However police say there are several ways businesses can protect themselves from these crimes.

This comes after three smash and grabs happened within 24 hours of each other Monday night into Tuesday morning. Heady Hittaz Headshop had a car driven into it Tuesday morning around 4:00 A.M.

Shane Allen Hill, the owner of Heady Hittaz Headshop, says this store is how he provides for his family and he was afraid he’d never open again.

“I’m a single dad. I do this for my daughter, and now that’s gone… please find these guys. Please, please.

“I’ve got somebody showing to guard the store. I have to pay to board the building up.

“Unfortunately, the door is what’s damaged, so I can’t even open my door to sell anything. Actually, I’m probably out of business.”

In similar cases, police say they’ve made arrests, but they say it’s extremely hard for them to keep these suspected criminals off the streets to commit these crimes again because they’re often times juveniles. They say because Colorado law, they have to release juvenile suspects and sometimes it’s out of their control whether they can even book them or not.

However, to be proactive, police they send crime prevention officers to any business or house to do a crime prevention assessment. From there, they can make recommendations to the owners free of charge.

11 News also reached out Castle Rock and Pueblo Police Departments to see if they’re seeing these crimes in their cities, they both told us they’re not.

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