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Cannabis owner robbed, threatened with gun
A brazen robbery at an Oakland cannabis delivery service has the owner asking for the public’s help in catching the thieves. Lamonica Peters reports
OAKLAND, Calif. - A brazen burglary at an Oakland cannabis delivery service has the owner asking for the public’s help in catching the thieves.
The theft happened early Saturday morning and the owner says one of the thieves brandished a gun at him when he showed up at the store.
"Like about 2:50 a.m. they cut the power to the whole building," said Alan Sorrentino, owner of Craft Cannabis in Oakland.
Sorrentino says the intruders seemed to have an orchestrated plan that ultimately helped them get over $100,000 in stolen product.
"Unfortunately they were able to get away with all of our inventory basically, so we’ve had to shut down," Sorrentino said.
Sorrentino says his alarm company notified him of the burglary early Saturday morning and they both called Oakland police multiple times.
He says he went over to the building and one of the suspects approached him with a gun, so he quickly left the area.
He says he could see them on the surveillance video the whole time.
"I sat and watched them pretty much loot the whole building for at least three hours," Sorrentino said.
The robbers left a trail of destruction behind them: Busted walls where a secured safe was removed, broken door locks, and broken stair steps.
Oakland police say there were at least three vehicles involved in the burglary.
"A white Toyota pickup truck, a small black sedan, possibly a Mazda or Toyota. Then there were a couple of other vehicles involved once they had made it into the vault area to help them unload," said Sorrentino.
Oakland police say they got to the location about 7:30 a.m. and explained they were unable to respond immediately because they simply didn’t have any officers available at the time.
"Normally this would’ve been not a problem if OPD would’ve responded in a reasonable amount of time," Sorrentino said.
He says other cannabis businesses have had similar burglaries and like the others, he may be out of business after this burglary.
He says he didn’t see OPD take any fingerprints at the scene, but he says they do have the security video.