ARTESIA — An Artesia man has been arrested in connection with a break-in last month at a local restaurant.
Austin Boone, 51, of Artesia, was charged with burglary (over $1,000) in connection with the crime, which occurred in the early-morning hours of June 21 at Wings, 402 N. First St.
Artesia Police Department (APD) officers were dispatched just before 5 a.m. that day after employees arrived to find unauthorized entry had been made to the building. Police cleared the building and noticed that both a burglary and criminal damage had taken place, and the APD Criminal Investigation Division was called to process the scene.
According to the criminal complaint, the damage included:
• a broken lock on the drive-through window and broken shelf inside the drive-through window, which was determined to be the point of entry.
• bending of the fire suppression system.
• a stainless-steel fan that had been knocked to the floor in the doorway to the kitchen area.
• a large power cable that had been stretched across the kitchen and tied off at a table.
• tampering with a vegetable cooler.
• the use of a sink sprayer to prop open the back door.
Investigators were able to obtain video surveillance footage from nearby businesses that showed Boone entering the restaurant through the drive-through window around 2:45 a.m. and moving in and out of the restaurant several times.
Boone was identified as a potential suspect on the day the break-in occurred after being found sleeping inside a vehicle on the north side of the restaurant’s parking lot. He was arrested at the time on separate charges relating to the entering of the vehicle.
Boone is currently scheduled to appear July 7 before Judge Jimmy C. Foster in Artesia Magistrate Court on charges of injuring or tampering with a motor vehicle and criminal damage to property (over $1,000) and will appear the same day on charges of non-residential burglary and criminal damage (over $1,000).