Grand Prairie police are looking for three masked robbers who stole approximately $25,000 from a local restaurant last week.
The owner of Lili’s Restaurant on South Belt Line Road was alerted to a break-in at around 3:30 a.m. last Thursday. However, the robbers were already gone by the time she got there. No arrests or leads on the suspects have been announced.
Surveillance video footage shows three suspects busting through the back door and stealing cash from two safes.
Marie Bonilla, whose mother runs the restaurant-convenience store mash-up, hopes the public will recognize the suspects in the video, even though they are wearing masks and hoods. One suspect had “Screwed Up Click” written on the back of his sweatshirt, and another wearing yellow gloves was captured clearly on camera before he spotted the recording device and knocked it over.
“I feel like the more that we share and put the word out there, the better the chance of catching these guys,” Bonilla told NBC 5 DFW.
While the restaurant — which specializes in Mexican and Salvadorian cuisine — opened in 2014, the retail part of the business has been running since 2009. It includes a money transfer service, the funds of which appear to be what the robbers were after.
“The money they stole wasn’t ours. … So we have to pay all that money back,” Bonilla said, per Fox 4 KDFW.
A few days earlier, another small business offering money transfer services was hit by thieves in Dallas. Jose Coria, the owner of Ceviche Loco on Lake June Road, reported that his establishment was burglarized early Monday morning.
“They had crowbars. They had sledgehammers,” Coria told Fox 4, noting that the suspects resembled those who knocked over Lili’s Restaurant.
The robbers made off with approximately $20,000 in cash and several flat-screen TVs, driving away in a black Nissan Titan.
The robbery in Dallas occurred in the southeastern council district represented by Council Member Jaime Resendez. District 5 logged 80 robberies this year as of July 21, according to the City’s crime analytics dashboard. This is roughly half the number clocked in District 6, represented by Council Member Omar Narvaez, who placed third in this month’s Crime Boss feature.
Criminals are targeting businesses in Dallas more and more, and police response times in certain parts of the city are not up to par. This is likely due to City leaders not directing enough resources to the Dallas Police Department, which is short-staffed and underfunded.
DPD currently fields just 3,000 officers, even though a City report previously recommended a force of roughly 4,000. It has a budget of $654 million this fiscal year, which is much less than the spending levels seen in other high-crime cities.