Main Street antique store robbed over weekend

CLOVIS — Robert Vilandry was still making inventory Monday afternoon of the items stolen in a multi-party, two-stop break-in to his Main Street antiques shop over the weekend.

“BB guns, pellet guns, spurs, pocket watches,” he told The News, surveying cabinets near the store’s entrance, a stone’s throw from where an actual stone was lobbed through the front glass door soon after midnight Sunday.

Then there were the pieces of squash blossom jewelry, a guitar, some video games, and up to 50 swords, including one so large the bandit had to drag it out the door. Vilandry initially estimated up to $20,000 in stolen merchandise, but that figure swelled in excess of $30,000 after Monday’s review.

“And that’s just stuff that I know,” he added. The store is large and deep, with furniture on an upper level and shelves laden with all manner of media, kitchenware, toys and more. There’s a reason the storefront says “Bullet Bob Has It,” after all.

The caper was caught on surveillance footage, but somehow the motion sensors and alarms weren’t tripped until Vilandry entered the store himself around 9 a.m. Sunday, after a friend dragging Main saw the broken glass out front.

Vilandry called Clovis police, who came to take fingerprints and begin an investigation.

“We believe we may have identified some of the suspects,” police Capt. Roman Romero told The News in an email Monday. As of that afternoon no charges had been filed, and Romero said there were no other break-ins reported on or near Main Street during the weekend.

Vilandry shared some of the surveillance footage online Sunday, and by Monday believed there was a positive ID on three of the five suspects. The videos reflect two visits in a short span of time — the first for about a quarter hour, then a second trip lasting about half as long to carry out the swords in a garbage bin.

Only so much could fit at a time in the vehicle used in the incident, which appeared to be 2012 two-door Mercedes.

Vilandry said this was the first break-in at his business, but not the first attempt — that was a few years ago on an unsuccessful effort to breach the building from the back.