Heist from Raleigh gun store nets 22 handguns

RALEIGH, N.C. (WTVD) -- A trio of thieves broke into a Raleigh gun store and in less than a minute stole nearly two dozen handguns.

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Details of the heist that happened in June at Triangle Shooting Academy are just being released after the arrest of one of the suspects, who is just 17.

"It's unfortunate that kids would be motivated to do something that stupid," Raleigh resident Steve Martinez told ABC11.

Martinez is a gun owner who has often been inside Triangle Shooting Academy in the Brier Creek section of the Capital City.

He notes that the store, gun range, and training center have numerous surveillance cameras inside and out.

According to a search-warrant affidavit filed by Raleigh Police, those cameras helped identify Jadacus Perry, 17, of Durham.

The teenager is the first to be charged, but police said three people wearing hoods and masks smashed a front window on the store June 12, crawled through it and went straight to two glass cases holding Glock brand handguns.

They used hammers to smash the cases then loaded 22 guns into backpacks and left.

Investigators say they were in and out in one minute.

Martinez said, "That's I guess, impressive a little bit if you're in and out with that much stuff in one minute. But much less impressive that you would pick somewhere that was that heavily protected and had that good of a chance of getting popped."

According to the search warrant, police also examined video taken three days earlier when they say Perry and another person came into the store just before closing to case the building.

They were not wearing masks then and outside surveillance cameras also captured the license plate of the car they were driving.

That led them to Perry's home in Durham where he lives with his mother.

According to an inventory list on the search warrant for the house, police seized, among other things, four Glock handguns.

But James McAllister, a gun owner from Durham who was shopping at Brier Creek, is concerned about the 18 other weapons.

"Most likely they'll probably get on the street and then people will use those handguns for robbery or killing or murder or something like that," he said.

Although only Perry has been charged, police are still investigating.