There are many ways for Apple fans to obtain the company’s products. You can order them online, drop by an Apple Store during normal business hours, or even pay someone to camp out in front of a store overnight on your behalf so you can be the first to get your hands on a vaunted new gadget. Each of these approaches has its adherents and detractors. But it must be said that every last one is objectively superior to the method employed by a group of burglars in Temecula, California last week.
Surveillance footage from the Temecula Apple Store shows a BMW ramming the shop’s iconic glass doors and plowing into the display tables, sending iPhones and iPads flying. A burglar leaps out and begins scooping up as many of the devices as he can collect, ignoring the much pricier MacBooks at the back of the store (lending anecdotal support to studies showing that today’s youth increasingly prefer mobile devices to laptops). Meanwhile, the driver discovers that backing out of those futuristic all-glass storefronts isn’t as easy as plowing in.
The vehicle finally manages to make its getaway, albeit with damage to the BMW that surely exceeds the value of a bunch of stolen iPhones—especially since the burglars staged the heist a week before the iPhone 5 launch, at which Apple announced that the current model’s price would drop to $99.
Worse, the damage included two flat tires, which stymied the getaway, and a lost license plate, which remained at the scene. Police nabbed a suspect hours later, perhaps on his way back to retrieve the license plate, according to the Press-Enterprise. He had in his pocket the keys to the car, which he had abandoned after a can of Fix-a-Flat failed to remedy the second flat tire. The suspect, 22-year-old Equonne R. Howard, pleaded not guilty Wednesday to multiple felony charges.
