By RICHARD ESSEX
WISH-TV | wishtv.com
A dad pulled into a parking spot Thursday morning at the Goddard School in Zionsville and walked his child into the building.
Seconds later, a white van with tinted windows pulled up in the adjacent parking spot. Surveillance video obtained by News 8 showed suspected thieves opening the driver-side door on the dad’s car at the preschool located northwest of West Oak Street and Ford Road.
The dad had just minutes earlier gone to an ATM. He went inside the school with his child and left $120 sitting in the open in the car.
Carmel and Zionsville police said they are investigating at least five vehicle break-ins Thursday morning. At least three preschools were hit as parents dropped off children.
Dea Walls, the owner of the Goddard School, watched the video as she described what happened. The suspects drove past the Goddard School parking lot at 8:15 a.m. and then into the parking lot next door. The suspects van went out of camera range only to reappear seconds later. The van stopped behind a line of parked cars, and someone got out. The camera did not capture what happened next, but News 8 found broken glass in the same parking spot.
Just a couple of minutes after the suspects first drove past the school, the van came back into the Goddard parking lot and pulled up next to the dad’s car, the video showed.
“You see here the passenger-side door open and then you see the driver-side of that car open, but you never … I think they know where the cameras are and stuff,” Walls said.
At the time the suspects were in the parking lot, there were two other parents in their cars just a few feet away, but no one saw anything.
“They (the suspects) are very quick. If you leave your laptop or your purse out on the seat, then they will just pop the window, reach in and grab it and they are gone,” Walls said.
The Goddard owner said she has previously seen such crimes of opportunity. She said the thieves know parents are in a hurry and often leave cars unlocked with purses and briefcases in the open.