TYLER, Texas — A local mattress business manager says his business was burglarized out of thousands of dollars in Tyler earlier this month.
Ryan Vinson is the owner of Sleep First Mattress, located at the 1400 West Southwest Loop 323. Vinson said the break-in was captured on their business camera which happened on Aug. 24 in the middle of the night.
On the camera, the suspects opened the front door with a crowbar and were able to steal an estimated $40,000 worth of inventory from the back door. Police told Vinson they've experienced people coming in from larger cities and stealing from smaller cities.
"We found these products on Facebook marketplace that were stolen (from) our store here in Dallas. The next day, (they were) posted with the exact same sizes and exact same products," Vinson said. "We've been in contact and communicated with them, you know, to try to find out some information on them. And conveniently, the law tags had been removed and ultimately they took (the posts) down after we started asking questions."
Vinson said this is the fourth time they've experienced a burglary and he believes his business is getting targeted.
"We've had two catalytic converters stolen at our warehouse off of our delivery trucks, which we were told people came in from Houston," Vinson said. "We've had our warehouse broken into and thousands of dollars of inventory stolen."
Vinson said his business is installing more cameras and a security system to prevent future burglaries. But he said this recent burglary will impact his business significantly.
"You know, for us to be able to pay that each month instead of putting it into advertising our employees or different things to you know, stabilize and grow our business," Vinson said. "Our insurance rates go up (and) we have a big deductible that we have to pay. And then obviously every year whenever our renewals come in and there's a theft, they raise the prices pretty significantly. So, it hurts the money that we can bring back into community."
Vinson urged locals to keep an eye out for any suspicious behavior.
"Please call the police. We got to look out for each other because it's hurting our community," Vinson said.
At this moment, no arrests have been made. Police continue to investigate this case as they are processing fingerprints found on the scene, Vinson said.