PORTLAND, Ore. — When the owner of Montavilla Station in Southeast Portland found out someone had stolen from her early Thursday morning, she and her employees worked as a team to track down the suspect.
The tavern was closed all day Thursday after two brazen burglars broke through a window and dashed inside, yanked out the drawer of the cash register and took the iPad from the bar.
Surveillance video from one of Montavilla Station's 16 security cameras shows one of the suspects pause to pick out a bottle of liquor before running out the door.
Tracy Stout, the owner, received a call at 5 a.m. on Thursday about the business' alarm going off. Not long after the smash-and-grab, Stout said she was notified again. This time, whoever took her tablet was trying to change the Apple ID and password.
"I noticed that they changed the name on there. They changed the phone number to their phone number. I went back in and changed that all and I turned on the 'lost mode' on the iPad, and then it was able to check the 'Find My' thing and I got the address," Stout said.
She called police and gave them the address and the phone number. Stout said that police already had the phone number in their system and it was associated with the same address.
While police responded to the address on Southeast Stark Street, so did Karla Brookfield and Tammy Latourette, two of Stout's employees. They had a snapshot of the person who allegedly broke into the business.
"We said, 'That’s the guy. This is what he looks like and this is what we’ve got.' [The officer] went back and looked at the guy was like, 'Yes, this is the guy,'" Brookfield said. "Our iPad was still in the location, it was still pinging in the location."
Portland police confirmed officers found the iPad inside an apartment and arrested 31-year-old Kevin Walsh. He had changed his clothes, the employees noted and pointed out to officers, although he had not changed his shoes.
"They said, 'Check the shoes' and the officer ran over and checked the guy's shoes and immediately arrested his and read him his rights," Stout said.
KGW does not know if the second person shown in the security video has been taken into custody.
"It is really discouraging," Stout said, referring to the situation. "It's really disheartening, but we have to keep keeping on. I have just a few employees and I don't want to let them down, or let my parents down who gave me the business. So we just do the best we can and keep trying to up our security systems."