Residents are on edge after a string of destructive burglaries continues targeting Long Beach businesses.

Surveillance video captured the moment a hooded suspect smashed their way into a restaurant and escaped with the cash register.

The break-in occurred on Sept. 30 at Speak Cheezy pizzeria in the Belmont Heights neighborhood just after midnight.

The owner, Jason Winters, believes the brazen theft was premeditated.

“It was very quick,” Winters said. “He didn’t go any deeper than the register. He knew exactly what he was going for.”

Winters said luckily the cash register was empty, but the costs to repair the destruction left behind will be expensive.

“We are probably talking $1,500 to $2,000 in damages for the door, cash register, point of sale system,” he said.

Winters also noted the recent burglary wasn’t the first time his pizzeria was targeted.

In January 2023, another suspect broke in using a crowbar and escaped with the restaurant’s safe from the basement, resulting in a $5,000 loss.

Winters said the uptick in destructive burglaries is hard on small business owners and even worse, it seems to be affecting more shop owners nowadays.

“It’s disheartening, like the fact that this isn’t just [affecting] me,” Winters said.

The shop next door, Ambiance Skin Care & Day Spa, was burglarized twice in a six-week period and is still recovering from the destruction left behind.

Local business owners are frustrated with the ongoing crime while also worried their store may be targeted next.

Many said they would like to see harsher penalties for smash-and-grab burglaries, hoping stricter consequences will deter thieves before a future confrontation turns violent or even deadly.

“More repercussions for people who are doing this, if they did get caught,” Winters said. “He took off on a bike and there was probably a getaway car. He knew exactly what he was doing.”

The suspect remains at large. Anyone with information on the case is asked to call the Long Beach Police Department at 562-570-7260.

A 58-year-old man who formerly lived in downtown Los Angeles pleaded guilty to trafficking a stolen Andy Warhol print worth at least $175,000, officials with the U.S. Department of Justice announced Tuesday.  

Prosecutors with the U.S. Attorney’s Central District of California Office say the Warhol print of former Soviet Union leader Vladimir Lenin, which was number 44 out of 46 prints the famous artist made, was stolen out of an L.A. County home in early 2021.  

According to a DOJ news release, the person who owned the artwork reported the theft to law enforcement, as well as to the West Hollywood gallery where the print was purchased.  

Days after the Warhol print was stolen, the thief sold it to a pawn shop who contacted Brian Alec Light, now a resident of Hudson, Ohio for help selling the piece.  

Light, who was aware the artwork was stolen, arranged for it to be sold at an auction house within weeks of the theft, prosecutors said.  

“Light told the pawn shop owner to drop off the Warhol at the auction house in Beverly Hills so that it could be transported to Dallas for inspection and sale, which the pawn shop owner did,” the release noted.  

When an employee of the Dallas-based auction house, who planned on including the Warhol print in a spring 2021 auction, contacted the West Hollywood gallery for its opinion on the piece, the gallery immediately recognized the stolen Warhol artwork and subsequently informed the Dallas-based auction house and the Federal Bureau of Investigation.  

“When the FBI questioned Light about it, he lied and created a fake receipt purporting to show that he bought the print before it was stolen,” prosecutors said.  

Light faces a maximum of 10 years in federal prison, and as part of his plea agreement, the 58-year-old “will forfeit the stolen artwork retrieved by law enforcement.”  

The investigation, which is being conducted by the FBI’s Art Crime Team, is ongoing.  

A homicide investigation is underway into the death of an inmate found unresponsive in his cell at Salinas Valley State Prison in Monterey County, officials announced Tuesday.

California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation officers were conducting security rounds when they made the discovery at 10:45 a.m. Monday, the CDCR stated in a news release.

Officers approached the cell occupied by Colin Hebert, 36, and Jessie Hernandez, 38, and called for medical assistance after observing Hebert was unresponsive.

“Life-saving measures were initiated and he was pronounced deceased at 10:58 a.m. by an institution doctor,” the CDCR stated.

Hernandez was placed on restricted housing pending the investigation.

“Officers recovered one inmate-manufactured weapon at the scene,” the release stated.

Hebert entered the prison from Riverside County on June 11, 2013, to serve life without the possibility of parole for attempted first-degree murder with an enhancement for intentional discharge of a firearm causing great bodily injury/death and assault with a firearm with enhancements inflicting great bodily injury and use of a firearm.

He also received an eight-year sentence while incarcerated for assault with a deadly weapon as a second-striker, according to the CDCR.

Hernandez entered the prison from Los Angeles County on July 22, 2004, to serve life with the possibility of parole for second-degree murder with an enhancement for use of a firearm and attempted second-degree murder with an enhancement for use of a firearm.

He also received a 12-year sentence while incarcerated for assault by a prison with a deadly weapon as a second striker.

Salinas Valley State Prison opened in 1996 and houses more than 2,500 minimum-, medium-, maximum- and high-security inmates.