CHARLOTTE, N.C. — Jonathan Luther runs JJ's Red Hots in Dilworth. He was never broken into until last month, and called the experience, a very bad feeling.
"You fear for the safety of your employees. I'm just glad they didn't come in with weapons," Luther said.
Charlotte-Mecklenburg police said Tuesday that his restaurant was one of more than 50 businesses broken into by the same group of men in a crime spree stretching back to August.
Police said it started with break-ins at cellphone stores, and crime analysts noticed a pattern.
"Crime analysis was able to link these series of commercial burglaries, cellphone store burglaries, with a second series of restaurant-related burglaries," said CMPD Capt. Allan Rutledge.
Luther experienced what many others did coming to work one December morning: a mess of glass and a ransacked office.
"We noticed there was an outside broken window. They broke the inside of the office window, crawled through the window in the office," he said.
They went after his safe, but couldn't open it, and quit in disgust 13 minutes later.
At dozens of other businesses, they were more successful, taking cash, and sometimes computer equipment that could easily be sold.
Investigators have charged Xzavior Green, 27, Jaqcorey Melton, 29, Durrell Williams, 26, and Whitli Smith-Bloomfield, 25. They face a total of 43 charges in at least 13 of the burglary cases.
Other targets included Showmars, McAllister's Deli, Metro PCs, Mama Ricotta's Italian Restaurant, Serenity Hair Spa in Ballantyne and dozens more.
In two of the cases, one suspect was seen wearing a Spider-Man mask.
"They were always completely covered from head to toe each time," Rutledge said.
Police said, despite so many crimes and lots of damage, all the burglars' efforts, didn't pay off.
"With the effort that some of these folks put into this kind of work, if they'd go find legitimate jobs, they'd be much better off," Rutledge said.
CMPD worked with Concord, Cornelius and Pineville police as well as Iredell and Lancaster counties sheriff's deputies to make the arrests.
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