The stickers on the door make it very clear that the company has an alarm system and one sticker even says there's video surveillance. But the thieves must not have noticed the camera trained on them.
It was 1:20 in the afternoon two Sundays ago. Two partially-hooded men can be seen on video casing out Silicon Valley Microelectronics and jimmying open the employee entrance door. There are pull-down shades covering most of the windows, but the thieves could see computers from the bottom window panes and they zeroed in on one computer -- an iMac.
The alarm did go off and Santa Clara police responded, but the two men were already gone with the desktop unit, a 5-year-old computer valued at $500. Besides the iMac, some files were lost, but system administrator Nathan Barnes says everything was backed up. However, he and police are hoping someone will recognize the thieves from the video.
They seemed to know what they wanted to steal. "It seemed that they must have seen it under the window. It was an iMac and they probably can get the most money out of that. So they just went directly for that. And they were in and out within a minute," Barnes said.
Asked if there other valuables they could have grabbed, Barnes said, "There were other laptops, other PC's, Macs, and they just went for the iMac."
Their faces are visible even with the hoodies. Santa Clara police are continuing their investigation and would welcome tips if someone recognizes the two men. To contact Santa Clara police, call 1-408-615-4700.
In the meantime, the company says they are going to upgrade their doors to make them jimmy-proof. They're also talking about upgrading their camera system to HD.
