Multiple Burglaries in West Ashley Recently

Property crimes continue to keep Charleston Police investigators busy as several West Ashley apartments, a business and school were sites of recent break-ins.

On Monday a maintenance worker at an apartment complex on Ashley Crossing Drive found a resident's dog running loose at 9:30 a.m. When he tried to return the dog to its owners he found their apartment door wide open with a damaged deadbolt, according to a Charleston Police Department report.

The resident left the apartment at 6 a.m. that morning. Several items were stolen from the apartment including two Blu-Ray players, two remote controls, a home phone, a Polaroid camera, jewelry and several bottles of prescription medicines.

Later that afternoon police also responded to the on Wood Avenue, where someone had broken a window and left a door open, though nothing appeard to have been stolen, according to the report. A security guard for the school told officers a motion detector alarm had gone off at 5:43 p.m. Monday, but no one was at the school when he arrived at 6:10 p.m.

Early Sunday morning someone broke into on Sam Rittenburg Boulevard, according to another Charleston Police Department report. Not long after all employees had left, at 2:18 a.m. Sunday, security cameras in and around the business captured footage of someone breaking into the business by smashing his way through both sets of glass doors.

Once inside the burglar attempted to pry open the cash register at the bar and pried open the door into a sotrage area/office inside the building, the report states, however nothing was taken from the business and the man is seen leaving without anything in his hands on the security camera footage.

On Saturday night, an employee of Hunley's Bar looked through a window in the back door and saw someone wearing all black clothing looking into his car in the parking lot. The man was wearing a hoodie that had been tied tightly around his face to conceal his identity, according to another police report.

The employee opened the back door and yelled to get the man's attention. He told police the man wearing the hoodie turned and pointed a pistol at him. As the employee dived back inside and closed the door he heard a single gun shot. Officers responding to the scene found a .380 shell casing in the parking lot and a bullet laying just inside the back door.

Last Wednesday, April 4, Charleston Police began investigating two other apartment burglaries, according to two separate police reports.

The first happened on Bantry Circle between 7:30 a.m. and 5:30 p.m. The victim told police someone entered her apartment and stole a gun, ammunition, jewelry and several CDs and DVDs from her bedroom. Nothing else in the apartment was distrubed. Investigators found no signs of forced entry, and the resident said she suspected an ex-boyfriend who knew the location of the items and may have a copy of her key.

The other burglary reported last Wednesday happened at an apartment complex on Ashley Hall Road, according to the report. The victim left her apartment at noon that day and returned shortly after 6 p.m. to find someone had smashed the back sliding glass door and stolen an XBox 360, a loaded .45 caliber Glock Hi-Point handgun and a purse that held $725 cash from her bedroom closet. Nothing else was taken or disturbed.