Thief busts through game store window, steals thousands in merchandise

SEATTLE — A local video game store is out thousands of dollars after a thief burglarized one of its Seattle locations Tuesday morning. Over the span of three hours, a man can be seen on surveillance video taking off with several items from Pink Gorilla Games.

Employees say they arrived at the store to find broken windows, several missing items, and a police report sitting on the counter. They used the store’s surveillance video to piece together what happened.

The video shows a man breaking one of the Pink Gorilla Games display cases at its International District location at around 1 a.m. Store owner Cody Spencer says the thief took games and consoles.

“It definitely felt targeted,” says Spencer. “We have very resalable stuff. Very valuable stuff. And we have big open windows. So, it makes sense.”

In the video, the thief is seen returning hours later. The second time, he broke down the door before entering; taking off with even more merchandise.

Spencer says the stolen products are worth about $8000. But he says that number doesn’t take into account the time that he and employees spent researching, buying, and cleaning the merchandise — some of which was imported from overseas.

The high-value theft at Pink Gorilla Games is becoming a harmful trend in Seattle’s Chinatown-International District, where there has been an increase in retail theft. The trend has left business owners on edge.

“It’ll be a little hard to sleep tonight,” says Spencer. “But we’re going to keep moving forward and try to fix everything.”

©2022 Cox Media Group