- A backhoe probably seemed like the right tool at the time. Automated teller machines, however, still prefer plastic.
Just ask the burglar who stuck the scoop of his stolen digger into the metallic innards of a cash machine at San Pablo Avenue's Washington Mutual branch on Monday morning.
The steel housing creaked and crunched. Alarms sounded. People stared, even at 4 a.m. The man finally ran off without the purloined backhoe or the cash box, still nestled in the rubble when police arrived.
"It doesn't happen often. And the reason it doesn't happen is because (criminals) are so rarely successful at penetrating the security devices in the ATM," Richmond police Lt. Alec Griffin said. "They're built very well."
The alarm company called police about the same time a passer-by reported "a suspicious vehicle in the parking lot" of the bank at 12121 San Pablo Ave., acting police Lt. Enos Johnson said.
The vehicle was stolen from an unfenced East Bay Municipal Utility District work site two blocks away. Crews are digging near Key Boulevard and Nevin Avenue to lay a water line, EBMUD spokesman Jeff Becerra said.
"Someone would need training to drive it," Becerra said. "And there was no key in the ignition."
The ATM sat in a wall dividing two drive-through teller consoles. Surveillance camera footage shows the backhoe struck the outer lane's machine, police said.
Police say they do not know whether a car that appeared earlier on the tape was involved. They ask anyone with information to call Detective Joe Anderson at 510-620-6698.