Multiple break-ins reported at storage facility; lack of video hampers police

Sep. 25—The meat slicer stolen from April Garcia's storage unit was a remnant from her childhood, a memento of the time she had spent with her father.

She recalled how she became fixated on the device, stored at the top of a cabinet in her family's trailer. One day, she said, she climbed up on a counter and touched it.

"My dad's like, 'What are you doing?' " Garcia said. She asked her father what it was, but she didn't get a definitive answer until the weekend, when her father slaughtered a pig and showed her how the slicer worked.

"When we were younger, we were very poor," Garcia said. "I don't know how my dad got that meat slicer, but we would kill our own pigs. ... We'd have the grinder and we had the slicer, and we would make our hamburger meat and we'd make our pork."

The meat slicer — along with her deceased father's tools, TVs and some of his clothes — were taken earlier this month from one of two units Garcia has been renting at Sentry Storage on Cerrillos Road. Her second unit also was hit in a series of break-ins at the troubled facility, where Garcia said security cameras haven't been working for months, there is no on-site manager and records show the business has been operating without a license.

Garcia has taken it upon herself to lock a gate to the facility after work every evening and unlock it every morning before her shift starts.

Santa Fe police Capt. Aaron Ortiz said the department has received reports of eight burglaries at Sentry Storage since July 1, including three in September.

But, he added, the cases are inactive because there are no investigative leads, largely due to the lack of surveillance camera footage.

"I don't have any information on whether [the cameras] have been offline or not," Ortiz said. "I do know that there's been no video surveillance of suspects breaking into units."

Sentry Storage owners could not be reached for comment on the crimes.

Records provided by the city of Santa Fe show the facility's business license has been expired since Dec. 31, 2019.

Garcia's eyes filled with tears as she talked about the thefts of her family's belongings.

"It was very hurtful because my dad worked his whole life to get what he has," she said. "When you just lose somebody, you don't want to lose [their possessions] either, because you feel like you're losing a piece of them."

She learned Sept. 12 her units were broken into.

Christopher Ryan, another customer of Sentry Storage, said he discovered his storage unit had been burglarized when he arrived at the business around 8:30 a.m. Sept. 17.

"As I tried to remove the locks ... the whole lock mechanism for the storage door just fell off," Ryan said. "I open it up, and the thing's been basically ransacked."

Thieves stole about $13,000 worth of clothing, a bicycle and other "random" possessions, he said.

Ryan looked around the facility and saw a row of units with damaged locks.

He immediately called Sentry's manager, whom he identified only by her first name, Alma. She told him she lives in Albuquerque, he said.

"I'm telling her, 'Alma, I am standing here, my unit has been broken into and I can get into several other units,' " Ryan said. "She was totally, like, resistant to like accepting that that's even a problem for the business."

The manager, reached by phone, declined to comment on the break-ins and referred questions to the owners.

Like Garcia, Ryan said security cameras at the storage facility have been inoperative for a while.

Garcia said the manager told her the problem likely was due to a major power outage in July but that she couldn't fix the cameras without permission from the property's owners.

"Somebody knew that these cameras were not working," Garcia said.

Still, she praised the property manager.

"Alma is really working her hardest to get everything situated," Garcia said. "She's been really, really good, and I know she wears her heart on her sleeve."

Garcia said she has been locking and unlocking the facility since she discovered the break-in Sept. 12, and management is aware of the extra steps she is taking to provide security for the units.

"I feel safe ... where I can sleep, but at the same time, it's kind of a pain," Garcia said. "It's kind of more of a safety thing for everybody else there as well."

She added, "I've been renting with Sentry for over 20 years. I can't afford anything else, I really can't. I live paycheck to paycheck."

Ortiz said it is unclear whether there have been a string of burglars targeting Sentry or an individual thief looting the units.

"It's hard to say if these are tied together and being committed by the same person," Ortiz said. "We do have data [on burglaries at the facility] going back for several months."