A Philadelphia contractor is offering a $1,000 reward for information after he says three masked men broke into his Bridesburg home, ransacked it and stole several valuables, including firearms, while he was down the shore.<\/p>\n
The burglary happened at the Bridesburg home of Joey Lawless, owner of JRL Roofing, while he was down the shore. Surveillance video shared by Lawless shows three masked men at the home.<\/p>\n
Lawless said he returned to find his home ransacked and later shared videos of the damage on social media.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s your home; that\u2019s where you make memories, or kids are supposed to be able to feel like they can go home and be safe, and that\u2019s not how I feel now, you know,\u201d Lawless said.<\/p>\n
Lawless said the burglars found multiple firearms that had been kept in different places throughout the home.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere was only one gun in the safe, and we had multiple guns hidden around the house. They found every single one. They flipped the entire house upside down; they even broke my furniture. They broke my couch. They weren\u2019t playing fair. They broke everything, no regard for anything,\u201d Lawless said.<\/p>\n
Philadelphia police Sgt. Eric Gripp said stolen firearms can pose a broader concern.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen you\u2019re dealing with someone that has a stolen gun, that\u2019s an indicator that they might be looking to use it for nefarious means,\u201d Gripp said.<\/p>\n
Police confirmed Northeast Detectives are investigating the burglary.<\/p>\n
Lawless has built a large social media following by sharing his roofing work, his family and efforts to help the community. He believes posts showing that he was vacationing down the shore may have played a role in making his home a target.<\/p>\n
Katie Hager, a senior digital strategist with Chatterblast Media, said people should consider waiting until they return home before posting vacation photos on social media.<\/p>\n
\u201cEveryone loves a vacation dump. Everyone loves a recap. Then you get to pick your best photos, but yes, wait until you are back in the home. There is nothing that can more clearly signal that you\u2019re away from home than my posting a photo of the day while you\u2019re on vacation,\u201d Hager said.<\/p>\n
Lawless is offering $1,000 for information that leads to the masked men and an arrest.<\/p>\n
This story was originally reported for broadcast by NBC Philadelphia. AI tools helped convert the story to a digital article, and an NBC Philadelphia journalist edited the article for publication.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A Philadelphia contractor is offering a $1,000 reward for information after he says three masked men broke into…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":264196,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[69,71,70],"class_list":["post-264195","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-philadelphia","tag-philadelphia","tag-philadelphia-headlines","tag-philadelphia-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/264195","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=264195"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/264195\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/264196"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=264195"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=264195"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=264195"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}