Burglars cause $15,000 in damage to snag frozen chicken from Spokane restaurant

Unless there’s a black market for frozen chicken, a pair of burglars must have been hungry when they rammed a pickup truck into a walk-in freezer and stole $200 worth of poultry in north Spokane.

The freezer was in a parking lot behind the Aloha Island Grill, a Hawaiian barbeque restaurant at 1220 W. Francis Ave., and a security camera captured the bizarre heist unfold in less than 2 minutes.

It was early Sunday, around 4:30 a.m. The truck approached the freezer slowly at first, then backed up and accelerated forward to breach the door. Then the driver turned around so that the bed of the truck was facing the freezer, apparently to speed up the loading process.

Two people got out, grabbed the chicken, tossed it in the back, returned to their seats and drove away.

Those industrial freezers aren’t cheap. A news release from the Spokane County Sheriff’s Office said the damage from the burglary would cost about $15,000. Detectives are asking for help in identifying the chicken thieves.

The truck is a blue and gold Ford F-150 with the body style made from 1999 to 2004. Detectives think it might have been taken to a body shop to have the front end repaired – perhaps by an unsuspecting owner who let others borrow the vehicle.

Detectives asked anyone with information about the burglary to call Crime Check at (509) 456-2233.