Brazen thieves steal new horns during store hours, under the watchful eye of working video cameras
In this day of cameras taping your every move, how brazen do you have to be to steal a couple of saxophones worth $5000+ each, from the largest music store in a major metropolitan area? That’s likely a question being asked in Saskatoon, SK—a city of approximately 300,000 people—located in Canada’s prairies.
Long & McQuade is Canada’s largest musical retailer, and at present has 65 stores spanning from coast to coast. On October 24, four brazen thieves (3 men and 1 woman) worked together to distract the staff, and then helped themselves to a couple of Selmer Paris altos that were on the store’s saxophone display wall.
The saxophones in question are a Series III alto, serial # N.754523, and a Reference Series alto, serial # N.747065. Needless to say the thieves did not manage to make off with the original cases and all the original accessories that come with them.
This is how a local radio station provided the police description of the suspects, and their alleged acts:
Saskatoon police released photos and details of four suspects in connection with the robberies. One is described as a 45-55 year old Caucasian with grey hair. He was wearing a black shirt, black pants, a three-quarter-length overcoat and dark rimmed glasses. Once in the store he removed his overcoat, hid a saxophone underneath and left the premises.
About 10 minutes later, two people are shown entering the store. A Caucasian male, described as late 20’s, 275-300 pounds, wearing a white Ecko sweatshirt, shorts and a dark ball cap. He is shown entering the store with a woman described as Caucasian, late 20’s – early 30’s, 140-150 pounds with reddish brown hair. She was wearing a white sweater and blue jeans.
Just moments after that a fourth person enters the store. He is described as a male in his early to mid 20’s with a light brown beard. He was wearing a dark-coloured hoodie with grey stripes, and the hood up, a black t-shirt, black jeans, sunglasses and a black ball cap. The video shows him removing a saxophone from the wall, hiding it under his hoodie and leaving the store. While this is going on the two others have positioned themselves between staff and the man in the hoodie.
Source: cjme.com
The Saskatoon Police, as well as the manager of the Long & McQuade store, have released both photos and a video showing what the brazen thieves looked like. As is so often the case when images like these are released: If you know the people who did the crime, you will be able to recognize them. The images are clear enough, and the suspects distinctive enough for recognition by their friends and family.
If you live in the Saskatoon and surrounding region, please check out the Long & McQuade store’s Facebook page to see if you recognize the suspects in this robbery.
It is worth noting that another music store in Saskatoon was also the victim of instrument theft in the past six months. After seeing the images posted on the Long & McQuade Facebook site, the manager of St. John Music came forward and stated that he believed these were the same people responsible for the theft of three professional model trumpets. Two of the horns were stolen on the same day.
Sadly St. John Music didn’t have video surveillance at the time of the thefts. That’s something the store will be changing shortly, because as the store’s manager stated: “It’s a lot less expensive to put in a video system than it is to lose $3,500 trumpets every six months” (cjme.com)
If you have any information about either of these thefts, please contact the Saskatoon Police.
What do thefts like this say about us as a society? It would be interesting to know if the music stores in the 1920s and 30s had thefts of their musical instruments in the same way.
Update June 2024: I tried to do some research on the outcome of all the music store thefts in the Saskatoon region a decade ago, but found nothing to indicate that the thieves were ever caught.
