Even Darwin cringes at recent bungled burglary at Wave Rave’s Bishop location
By Vane/Lunch
Steve Klassen can’t stop thinking about it.
It being the attempted burglary of a store that hadn’t even opened yet.
And he’s not thinking about it in the way you might think he would.
In fact, he says, “Every time I think about it, it just makes me laugh, and my stomach hurts because I’ve been laughing so much.”
Three Bishop residents couldn’t wait for the grand opening of Steve Klassen’s Wave Rave in Bishop and, in the wee hours of Nov. 17, opened the store themselves. According to Bishop Police Department (BPD) Public Information Officer Katie Coffman, BPD Officers arrived at the site of the break-in at 1:45 a.m. and found the front glass door broken and clothing scattered around the building.
Shortly thereafter, BPD Officers and Inyo County Sheriff’s Deputies and Detectives had taken Bishop residents Tara Brolsma, 30, Darrell Maddox, 18, and Vincente Soto, 19, into custody.
The kicker: BPD Officers had followed a trail of stolen clothing from Wave Rave to Brolsma’s apartment complex behind the outlet store. “We literally did find a trail,” Coffman said. “There was clothing dropped in front of the building, and we could see more clothing being trailed toward the back.”
According to Inyo County Sheriff’s Detective Kelvin Johnston, BPD Officers were preparing to make contact with residents of the apartment complex when they came across a pile of clothes outside of Brolsma’s apartment.
Officers set the perimeter and awaited the arrival of Inyo County Sheriff’s Deputies and Detectives.
Maddox was taken into custody first, and Soto exited the apartment just before Sheriff’s Deputies and Detectives served the search warrant. Brolsma was taken into custody inside the apartment, Johnston said.
The three residents were arrested on felony charges of receiving stolen property.
But the Wave Rave break-in wasn’t the only burglary that morning, Coffman said. BPD officers had previously responded to a Rite Aid burglary alarm at 1:25 a.m. Officers cleared the building and determined the suspects had fled to an unknown location. According to Detective Johnston, the burglars had stolen four bottles of Jägermeister from a locked liquor cabinet.
Upon searching Brolsma’s residence, Officers, Deputies and Detectives located those missing Jägermeister bottles, along with additional stolen merchandise, Johnston said.
Both Rite Aid and Wave Rave are now assessing damages and tallying the cost of the stolen merchandise. The Inyo County Sheriff’s Department investigation is ongoing.
