Police are continuing their investigation of three separate break-ins to downtown Jacksonville businesses in one morning.
Around 4 a.m. Wednesday, David Rain, owner of Professional Estate Buyers at 201 W. Morgan St., got a call about his business being broken into. He said one item had been taken, but the real annoyance was having to clean up the glass from the door the burglar broke into.
Rain said he doesn’t feel unsafe, though he’s noticed it’s a trend.
“There’s been a rash of them here lately,” Rain said.
Over the weekend, the downtown business The Peachy Nest was burglarized.
Besides Rain’s store, Soap Co. Coffee House at 207 S. Sandy St. and Charlie’s at 115 W. Lafayette Ave. were also broken into.
Soap Co. Manager Mia Parra realized the store had been burglarized when she started opening up.
“I got here this morning, went into the kitchen, started doing my thing, and then went to go unlock the front door and all of that, and that’s when I saw that the window was busted in,” Parra said.
The window’s already been fixed. Parra said they weren’t worried about it happening again.
“It’s a, I mean, pretty uneventful event,” Parra said while the eating area at Soap was filled with customers. “I mean, he didn’t take any of our stuff, just the cash.”
Each of the three businesses were still operating Wednesday morning. Charlie’s drive-through window was broken, but the staff were still taking orders with a line of cars that are typical for its lunchtime.
Police couldn’t confirm if they had a suspect, though camera footage from outside and from inside at least one business were handed over to investigators. Commander of Investigations Kyle Chumley said the burglaries could all be related, but he didn’t want to make any assumptions.
Chumley said currency was the main thing taken at each business.