How the hell can this happen!!???

Thieves steal thousand of dollars in firearms hours before gun show at Park Expo and Conference Center

by Caroline Hicks | February 17, 2020 at 4:42 PM
EST - Updated February 17 at 6:18 PM

CHARLOTTE, N.C. (WBTV) - Police are looking for the thieves who stole thousands of dollars in weapons from a gun show over the weekend.

The Dixie Gun and Knife Show took place at the Park Expo and Conference Center on Saturday and Sunday. According to the report, people broke in around 4 a.m., which is several hours before the show started.

“Bad, bad, bad news for me," licensed gun dealer Fred Pickler said.

Pickler has spent the past 50 years at gun shows as a licensed dealer, but the phone call he got early Saturday was a first for him.

“She said I quickly needed to come to the show the building had been broken into,” he told WBTV.

Pickler says surveillance footage showed at least two people throw a rock to shatter this back window and get inside. They then headed straight for his gun displays.

“They actually picked up an ammunition can that was laying right besides the case and they used it like a hammer they smashed the glass and they just reached in scooped the guns out and took off with them,” he said.

They grabbed 23 guns worth almost $15,000 dollars, but they dropped 12 of those guns on their way out. They ended up getting away with about $7,545 worth of guns and accessories.

Pickler suspects he was targeted.

“The criminals that did this act came to my show previously and saw my location,” he said. “They figured if they could get in the building they could make a smash and grab.”

He wants to know why security guards didn't act sooner.

“It would’ve been boom boom boom I mean it would’ve been heard I’m satisfied I’m sure it would’ve been heard up front if they weren’t distracted by another noise like a radio or TV," he said.

Despite what happened, Pickler decided the show must go on.

“The guns that were damaged and put back in, I reduced the price on them and put them back out for sale," he said.

According to the Mecklenburg County Sheriff’s Office, two off-duty deputies were serving as security guards when this happened. They called CMPD officers who were able to log the serial numbers for the stolen guns.

Police have not made any arrests.

Copyright 2020 WBTV. All rights reserved.

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So you hire security guards and they are no where to be found. Curious.

quote:

Originally posted by old rugged cross:
So you hire security guards and they are no where to be found. Curious.

It's a 400,000+ square foot building. Even if they were doing their jobs to the best of their ability (which they may not have been), two guys can't be everywhere at all times in a building that massive.


It sounds like the burglars knew exactly where they were going. They smashed a back window, headed directly to a specific display case, smashed it, and then ran off with the gun inside.

Something like that would have taken a matter of seconds to accomplish.


So even if they had noticed it as it happened, how long would it have taken security to get there from another part of the facility?

Not a detective but sounds like this was done by folks who know some stuff. IE: Inside job. And if you are going to have a bunch of guns in a facility overnight. Best to have enough security to protect things.

quote:

Originally posted by RogueJSK:
[QUOTE]Originally posted by old rugged cross:
So you hire security guards and they are no where to be found. Curious.

It's a 400,000+ square foot building. Even if they were doing their jobs to the best of their ability (which they may not have been), two guys can't cover everything at all times in a building that massive.

400,000 Square feet is more than mine acres. Are you sure the hall is that big?

Their website says:

In addition to the 224,000 square feet of open exhibition space, the Park Expo and Conference Center boasts 160,000 square feet of permanent office and showroom space, as well as 15,000 square feet of conference and meeting room space.

That's 399,000 square feet in exhibition/conference/meeting/office space alone.

Plus a 300 seat restaurant and associated kitchen area. Plus hallways and entranceways and bathrooms and utility areas and loading docks and staging areas and storage and etc.


So yep, over 400,000 square feet.

Butt why would they need to cover the entire facility when the items they are protecting might cover 20000 sq ft +- for example

Guards could be paid to be somewhere else but the $ amount realized may mean just that the crooks were lucky and the guards were in fact unable to be everywhere at once.

quote:

Originally posted by old rugged cross:
Butt why would they need to cover the entire facility when the items they are protecting might cover 20000 sq ft +- for example

You're assuming that they were hired to protect the guns alone. The security contract could have been for the entire facility. And even if it was just for the exhibition hall where the guns were located, that hall is apparently 224,000 square feet, which is like 4 football fields. How quickly can you run across 2/3/4 football fields?

Also, the primary intent of site security isn't to catch people who have broken in to the building. It's primarily intended to serve as a deterrent against people considering breaking in. So while they could have laid in wait in a camouflaged hunting blind amidst the gun racks, ready to jump out if someone broke in, it's more likely that they were instructed to position themselves somewhere highly visible, like near the entrance, or to perform roving patrols in order to increase their visibility.

Even the victim seems to point out that security was "up front" at the time in his (disjointed) statement: “It would’ve been boom boom boom I mean it would’ve been heard I’m satisfied I’m sure it would’ve been heard up front if they weren’t distracted..."

So even if they weren't distracted like he believes, depending on where they were located "up front" it's likely that they wouldn't have been able to orient themselves to the noise and covered the distance to that specific spot in the few seconds it took the burglars to smash a case, scoop out a couple armloads of guns, and scoot. (And considering they dropped half of what they stole in the process, they were apparently moving in a hurry.)

Thats the second one in NC. Looks like a good target for the next one, too. I also wonder what the value of the bathrooms and hallways had. My guess is the office space and whatnot didn't contain anything much of value. And then comes this weekend in Louisville. I wonder if Ron Dickson has guards or just used the guys in the golf cars that buzz around the parking lots.

The simple fact is, gun shows are hot targets. Large arena's, hig value ocntents. Many entrances and exits and worse, we're not a sympathetic target. All the big city mayors hate us. No reason to increase patrols around them. I bet when General Patton lent us one of his tanks and his Registered Magnum, the guard was sitting right there by the tank.

Orrrr, it could be that they smashed a window, ran to the closest vendor and then ran off while the cops were at the other entrance talking to each other......just saying.

It’s natural for the cops or anyone else for that matter, to congregate and jibber jabber...

quote:

Originally posted by old rugged cross:
Not a detective but sounds like this was done by folks who know some stuff.

I am and this is what I work. Retail Gun theft is a big deal and usually well planned. Many times, there are thugs that specialize in these types of theft. If you look at gun store burglaries, they all follow a pattern. They are often well planned and practiced.

The security guards may have been lazy slob cops, but retail gun thieves are often professional.

4 football fields of guns. They would be a BIGSHOW.


I guess my assumption that a large concentration of legal unsecured firearms would need to be protected by a sufficient contingent of armed and capable professionals.

Thugs are thugs whether they are organized or not.

Grabbing 23 guns and dropping 12 on the way out hardly seems like this was a professional crew

quote:

Originally posted by old rugged cross:
4 football fields of guns. They would be a BIGSHOW.

It was not a BIGSHOW; a good one, but not that big. The entire show was in Liberty Hall. A very open rectangular 104,000 sq. ft. space.

http://dixiegunandknifeshow.com/charlotte.html
https://theparkexponc.com/about/

As RogueJSK indicated, security may have been hired for the entire facility, not just the show.

I don’t think the overnight security was sworn CMPD. During the show they have CMPD as security.

I don’t know anything specific to the incident and couldn’t comment if I did, but it’s a big area to keep an eye on. I went there Sunday, lots of guns left

Need more LE on duty and a few K9s.. . Would be great to read the thieves got nabbed by a land shark..ouch!

quote:

I went there Sunday, lots of guns left

Vendors moved a lot of inventory this past weekend. The place was crowded both Saturday and Sunday. Much, much more traffic than the December show. Clearly driven by election year jitters.

I was walking the gun show here in Greenville, SC this past weekend and actually thought about security....

It would seem to me the folks putting on the show would have their own security 24 hours while the event is going on.... and with the size of the show I was at even at night it would not be just one loan off duty cop.

quote:

Originally posted by old rugged cross:
4 football fields of guns. They would be a BIGSHOW.


I guess my assumption that a large concentration of legal unsecured firearms would need to be protected by a sufficient contingent of armed and capable professionals.

Thugs are thugs whether they are organized or not.

Grabbing 23 guns and dropping 12 on the way out hardly seems like this was a professional crew

Seems like you already have opinions of this and your intent is just to troll this thread.

Good luck with knowing everything despite admitted not investigating these types of crimes nor actually being at the scene.

quote:

Originally posted by safespot:
The entire show was in Liberty Hall. A very open rectangular 104,000 sq. ft. space.

So only two football fields in that particular room, assuming the security contract was just for that space.