Conviction Reversed For Burglary by Acetylene Torch at Best Buy
In the early morning hours of June 3, 2008, a silent alarm was triggered at a Murietta Best Buy. Police arrived and found “a large hole cut in a side steel door leading into the store that appeared to have been made by a torch.”
Inside the store, police found a locked camera cabinet that had been forced open. A store security video showed a man in a hooded sweatshirt taking video recorders and cameras worth approximately $24,600 from the cabinet.
Police spotted an individual, later identified as Gabriel Anthony Cardwell, near the store in a concrete flood control channel. He was pulling two shopping carts behind him. As police approached the man, dressed in a hooded sweatshirt, he pushed the shopping carts off an embankment and ran towards the I-15 Freeway. As police ran after him, he yelled, “I have a gun. I’ll fucking shoot!” Police later apprehended the man near a U-Haul van, with its hood warm to the touch.
Police found a backpack near the man. It contained a hatchet, a hacksaw, a bolt cutter and a crowbar. In the van, police found two gas canister tanks and an acetylene base cutting torch, as well as a water bottle that had Cardwell’s fingerprints on it. Police later determined that Cardwell had rented the van.
Cardwell was arrested and charged with burglary (Penal Code
