Usual suspects use car to rip door off Connecticut gas station

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An ATM theft was caught on camera at a convenience store in South Windsor early Monday morning, and police said it was part of a string of burglaries.

Police said the suspects used a car to rip the door off an Exxon gas station on John Fitch Boulevard.

It happened just before 2 a.m.

Police said they received a call from a passerby that the door to the business was missing.

Upon arrival, officers confirmed that the ATM was missing.

Security footage captured how it all unfolded.

It showed a dark green Volvo pulling into the parking lot early Monday morning. At least three people dressed in black with their hoods up and faces covered got out of the car with crowbars in hand.

The suspects first tried to break the door open by hand but couldn’t.

They then tried tying the door to their car.

After an initial failed attempt, they tried again and ripped the door off its hinges and sent it flying into the parking lot.

The owner said the suspects then stole the ATM and drove off.

The robbery left bottles of water and snacks littered across the ground. The door was ripped off and the wall and pulled away from its foundation.

“It’s very sad to see it happening,” said Crystal Dominguez, Cameron’s Deli. “I didn’t really think I would ever have to go through something like this.”

Dominguez works inside the gas station. She said she showed up to work on Monday morning and was shocked.

“I come up to the door and I see that everything is broken,” she said.

The owner expected cleanup to take hours and planned to keep the business closed for the rest of the day.

Regular customers reacted to what they found when they arrived.

“I can’t believe this,” said Gregory Fazzina of South Windsor. “This is a beautiful gas station, we all come up here. They’re very nice people.”

“It’s a crazy world,” said Ed Ellenberg of East Hartford. “People are desperate for money, so I’m sure they had a plan.”

South Windsor police said they have been speaking with both Simsbury and Farmington police, who had similar incidents in a similar time frame.

Farmington police said that they responded to a Mobil gas station at 843 Farmington Ave. around 1:50 a.m. after someone tripped a burglary and glass break alarm.

They said the front door of the gas station had been forced off its hinges. The ATM was missing.

They said their initial information showed suspects with similar descriptions to that of the South Windsor incident.

“Initial information suggests that three suspects, all wearing masks, arrived in a dark blue Volvo SUV and removed the ATM before fleeing the area,” Farmington police wrote in their report.

Simsbury police said there were two burglaries in their town. One happened around 1:20 a.m. at a Pride gas station on Hopmeadow Street.

In that case, they said the suspects were able to pry open the ATM and take an unknown amount of cash.

Another Pride gas station on Hopmeadow was also hit at some point overnight. In that case, however, police noted that only tobacco products were stolen.

Anyone with information about the burglaries was asked to call either South Windsor, Farmington, or Simsbury police