Burglars who were interrupted by a Littleton police officer as they were carting guns and jewelry out of a pawn shop dropped three guns and sped away in a pickup early Wednesday morning, authorities say.
The police officer did not chase the pickup as its occupants fled the Pawn Bank, 1360 W. Littleton Blvd., at high speed because of departmental policy designed to protect officers and the public, said Cmdr. Trent Cooper, spokesman for the Littleton Police Department.
Apparently panicked by the approaching police squad car, several burglars dropped three shotguns near the entrance, climbed into a red Ford diesel pickup and bolted, Cooper said.
Police discovered a fourth gun about two blocks away from the pawn shop. It’s unclear whether one of the thieves bobbled the gun and it dropped by mistake or intentionally discarded it.
The burglars had pried open the glass front door of the pawn shop open and used a bike rack to keep it open, Cooper said. They smashed several glass display cases, he said.
“It looks like they were grabbing whatever they could get their hands on. They were pretty indiscriminate,” he said.
A passerby spotted the pickup backed up to the entrance of the shop and called 911 at 2:45 a.m., Cooper said.
The owner of the pawn shop is doing inventory of rare coins and gold jewelry to determine what was snatched from the shop.
Although the thieves used a different method of entering the shop than many recent smash-and-grab burglars, their intent was similar: get in, grab as much as they can and run, Cooper said.
