San Francisco store owner had nearly exact same crime happen before

Includes video report

By Kate Northrop

SAN FRANCISCO, Calif. — Four individuals were arrested on Tuesday after they allegedly plowed a truck through a California convenience store to steal lottery tickets.

A San Francisco lottery retailer was left with thousands of dollars' worth of property damage after a truck slammed through the building to steal lottery tickets.

On Tuesday at 9:39 p.m., police responded to a commercial burglary incident "at a business on the 1600 block of Balboa Street in the Richmond District" of San Francisco. Officers arrived to find significant property damage, but by that time, the San Francisco Police Department (SFPD) said, the suspects had already fled the scene.

A Google Maps and Streetview search shows that the business appears to be Seventeenth & Balboa Market on the corner of Balboa Street and 17th Avenue.

Surveillance footage captured inside the store shows a white truck pummeling through the walls, smashing glass and knocking back merchandise. A hooded man dressed in dark clothing enters through the exposed gap the truck created and leaves moments later with handfuls of lottery tickets streaming behind him as he dashes out of view.

Store owner Nick Lawson showed up at his store on Tuesday night to find a headache of a mess and $350 worth of lottery tickets stolen. According to the owner, the thieves only stole the lottery tickets and nothing else.

Shockingly, this is not the first time Lawson had his store burglarized in nearly the exact same way. One year ago, a similar crime resulted in $10,000 worth of lottery tickets being stolen. He has since toughened up his lottery ticket area, which may have contributed to having lost only $350 in tickets this time around.

It still doesn't take away from the fact that he has thousands of dollars' worth of property damage.

"It's just sad that, you know, [in] San Francisco and the Bay Area in general, it's hard to be a small business owner," Lawson told NBC while standing in front of the wreckage.

Although one car was seen on surveillance footage pummeling through the walls, neighbors in the area provided footage and helped police piece together additional surveillance video that captured another getaway car and other suspects involved in the crime.

A short time later, a statement from SFPD reads, plainclothes officers spotted the suspect vehicles near I-80 eastbound at Octavia Boulevard and continued surveilling the vehicles as they traveled to Oakland.

"Officers formulated a plan" and disabled one of the vehicles in Oakland. They arrested the car's occupants, Enrique Johnson-Antunez, 27, of Emeryville and Valerie Brinkmann, 33, of Newark.

Two additional suspects, Esteban Vasquez Lara of Oakland and Elena Carlson, were arrested later by the Oakland Police Department while they attempted to cash in the stolen lottery tickets at a business "in the area of 14th and Adeline Streets," according to the SFPD.

A Google Maps and Streetview search shows that business is likely Sunbeam Market on the corner of 14th Street and Adeline Street.

All four suspects were booked at San Francisco County Jail #1 on a myriad of charges, including burglary, conspiracy to commit a felony, theft of a vehicle, possession of burglary tools, buying or receiving a stolen vehicle, vandalism, vehicle registration fraud, parole violation, possession of drug paraphernalia, possession of methamphetamine, and buying or receiving stolen property.

The SFPD considers this an open investigation and urges anyone with information to contact them.

VIDEO: Watch the report

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