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Up to $20,000 in goods stolen from longtime Rifle business

Video de vigilancia del sospechoso irrumpiendo en Rifle's Action Shop Services el 13 de diciembre.
Courtesy/Judy Hewitt

A Rifle business owner says burglars who carried out a “smash-and-grab”-style theft last week made out with up to $20,000 worth of equipment.

Action Shop Services, a Rifle business of 40 years that specializes in selling and renting items like power equipment, was robbed around 10:30 p.m. Dec. 13.

Owner Judy Hewitt said on Monday that surveillance video shows three males busting through shop windows and doors. They then stole Stihl-brand equipment, like chainsaws, demolition saws, snowblowers and more.



“They were here twice,” Hewitt said. “They were probably no longer than three minutes each time, and we are literally talking smash and grab.”

Hewitt said Action Shop originally started in 1982, and that incidents like this typically don’t happen in Rifle. She hopes this incident alerts fellow business owners to be on the lookout.



“When I watched the video of them, it was like watching something in Los Angeles, Denver or New York,” she said. “I wasn’t watching Rifle, Colorado. That’s what bothers me more than anything. It was terrifying.”

Hewitt said she did file a report with the Rifle Police Department. 

“If they’re trying to ruin my Christmas, it ain’t going to happen,” Hewitt said of the suspects. “But I’m hoping to ruin theirs.”

Rifle Police Chief Deb Funston said on Monday that there are no immediate leads at this point but that the department continues to work on it. She also said there isn’t a growing trend for this type of burglary in the region.

“We haven’t had a lot of these and I am not hearing about similar ones in our region,” she said.


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