‘Something we think about every day’: Jeweler explains constant security concerns following burglary in Winnebago Co.
ALGOMA, Wis. (WFRV) – Jewelers had over $100,000 in cash and jewelry burglarized from their home Wednesday afternoon in Algoma, according to the Winnebago County Sheriff’s Office. The incident has local jewelers on edge about whether or not they keep merchandise at their homes.
“At your home, that’s incredibly scary because it’s very brazen,” Dream Jewelers owner Kimberly Gordon said. “[Criminals] think that we keep things at home. Unfortunately for that person they did, we do not for that reason.”
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Gordon is shocked that the incident occurred in Winnebago County and thinks that locals would not do something like this.
“I hear a lot of stores that get robbed, but not in this area,” she said. “Typically, it’s in bigger metropolitan areas. We tend to get a little bit lax on security in this area just because it is such a blue-collar area and people are trustworthy. We don’t tend to think it can happen to us.”
According to the Winnebago County Sheriff’s Office, the suspects waited until the residents left the home, and then moved in to loot it.
Investigators say this crime likely stems back to at least 2020, when numerous homes in the Omaha, Nebraska, area were burglarized. In those incidents, the suspects were identified as operating out of Houston, Texas, and were originally from Honduras.
“There have actually been, recently, over the last two years, some actual crime syndicates that are breaking into jewelry stores,” Gordon said. “Some of the things that they’re doing are getting around some security protocols, so we have to be even more vigilant than we had in the past. They’ll spend two or three weeks watching that store before they actually break in, so they know everything they need to know not to get caught.”
Gordon says that the incident will increase her vigilance, and she regularly talks with her staff about it.
“Of course, that will heighten my thought process. We always need to continue to talk about security,” she said. “We do very often talk about when people come in and when things feel strange, what you should do in that instance, and when we leave at night, the protocol for the security when we leave.”
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But as a jeweler, sometimes your safety is impacted outside of your job.
“It’s something that we have to think about every single day when we’re here. Our staff has to think about it. We have to think about it. We have to think about when we go home to see if anyone is following us, we have to think about when we do get home if there are any dark areas when we get out of our cars,” she said. “I really feel for somebody having someone come to their home because that’s a whole different level of fear that puts into a person.”
