Criminals attempt break-in at South Bend gun shop

SOUTH BEND, Ind. – Two men attempted to break into a South Bend gun shop early Tuesday morning. According to police records, the incident happened around 2:00am at Femme Fatale on South Main Street. Video shows one man covering his face and head with a hood, wearing yellow gloves, swinging a hammer at a glass door 4 times.

“We had the alarm go off here, letting us know there was an attempted robbery.” Owner, Rebecca Bartol, said. “We saw two suspects circling the building for approximately 10 minutes. Prior to the attempted break-in. They pulled up in a parking lot across the street on a couple of Lime Bikes, it appears.”

Several cameras throughout the business captured video of the criminals. Bartol let ABC57 News view all of the videos, but didn’t want to release all of them to be broadcasted for security reasons. The video shows one of the men keeping a lookout, while the other hits the front door with a hammer.

“The alarm went off and they immediately fled to their Lime Bikes across the street.” Bartol said.

South Bend Police tell ABC57 News they’re investigating the incident as a vandalism, because no entry was made.

“It wasn’t vandalism. It was an attempted break-in.” Bartol said. “Why else would you break the window at a gun store after casing the place for 10 minutes.”

Bartol may have a point. This could be considered Attempted Burglary based on Indiana Code.

IC 35-41-5-1
Attempt
Sec. 1. (a) A person attempts to commit a crime when, acting with the culpability required for commission of the crime, he engages in conduct that constitutes a substantial step toward commission of the crime. An attempt to commit a crime is a felony or misdemeanor of the same class as the crime attempted. However, an attempt to commit murder is a Class A felony.

SBPD says there’s no reason to believe the men could target other gun shops.

The ATF says they’re aware of the incident. The agency does not keep track of Attempted Burglaries, however, there have not been a rash of successful gun shop burglaries in northern Indiana. In the past year, there have been two in all of northern Indiana, 11 across the state.