At night, motion sensors, surveillance cameras, a security gate, reinforced walls and metal studs help alert authorities and detain a burglar, trapping the interloper until police can arrive.
Gary Trenary spent more than $10,000 in security precautions at his Missoula pharmacy, a wager that paid off last week when the beefed-up security network helped thwart an attempted robbery.
The would-be robber walked into the pharmacy on South Third Street West last Monday night, demanded OxyContin, then turned around and left when she noticed that both pharmacists had ducked behind the towering security counter and hit an alarm.
But even despite the relatively benign outcome, Trenary is going to make another change he hopes will deter drug-seeking criminals.
“We're no longer going to handle OxyContin. We're just not going to stock it at all,” he said. “That's what they all want and it's just not worth it. My daughter works here, my wife is here all the time. We're just a small private drugstore.”
For anyone who needs the painkiller legitimately, Trenary said, he can place an order and have the drugs within 24 hours.
Before Dove bought the Seeley Swan Pharmacy, she had worked at another area pharmacy that had been robbed and burglarized several times. She began boosting her security system almost as soon as she purchased the drugstore.
“I knew we'd be hit eventually,” she said. “It's sad that pharmacies have to go to this extent. I'm brand new. I shouldn't have to put this much money into security when there's other areas where it could be used.”
Cameras and seismic sensors will detect anyone coming through the roof or wall, and a modified security gate locks the person inside.
“If they come in through the ceiling, they'll have to go out that way. And by then the police will have arrived,” Dove said.
The security system was put to a rigorous test on Oct. 15, when Andrew Bagley allegedly climbed through a second-story window and hacked several holes in the drywall. The motion sensors failed, alerting police too late, and Dove reported that $1,388 in cash was stolen in addition to some $2,500 worth of prescription drugs.
On Nov. 10, the pharmacy was again burglarized, with Bagley allegedly getting in through a 14-by-22 inch hole in the drywall.
“It was very small, but he just wriggled his way through,” Dove said.
This time the alarms were triggered immediately, Dove said, and Bagley, who also is charged with burglarizing the SavMor pharmacy, allegedly fled just before authorities arrived.
“The first time, he had time to sit there and pick through the drugs, just like he did at SavMor,” Dove said. “The second time he didn't have that luxury and was only able to take about 50 bucks' worth of stuff. He dropped a lot of drugs trying to leave.”
Bagley, 26, now faces five counts of burglary and six counts of criminal drug possession, all felonies.
In 2007, Bagley was convicted of breaking into SavMor and stealing the drugstore's entire supply of OxyContin. Last month, exactly one year after a judge sentenced him to five years in the custody of the Department of Corrections and 10 years on probation, he was arrested outside SavMor again, having allegedly hacked through drywall with a crowbar to access nearly $13,000 in prescription medications.
Bagley, who has admitted that he began using opiates at a young age, is not the only person to rob and burglarize in the throes of addiction.
Joseph M. Raisanen, 24, held up SavMor Pharmacy last May, brandishing a pistol that turned out to be a BB gun. He forced the store's pharmacists to fill a bag with the pain medications OxyContin and oxycodone and later told police that he committed the robbery because he is addicted to opiate painkillers and could sell them, court records state. Detectives estimated the drugs' street value at around $50,000. On the street, oxycodone typically sells for $1 per milligram.
Dove moved to Montana from Las Vegas in May 2006, and took a job at Health Care Plus, a pharmacy in Seeley Lake. The store was burglarized a month later, and Dove remembers two additional burglaries before leaving last October.
The Seeley Swan Medical Center also was hit numerous times, and a task force was assembled to try to catch the culprits, who likely used the pills to get high or sold them around Missoula.
“Nobody has ever been caught. It's always been a smash and grab,” Dove said. “If someone wants to get in, they'll get into any pharmacy. But you can do certain things to buy yourself time.”
Dove learned that most burglars gain access to pharmacies through the roof, because a business' main entrances are typically equipped with alarms.
Rob Scheben, the Missoula Police Department's crime prevention officer, said business owners like Dove and Trenary are doing right by taking lots of precautions.
“The key is, people need to make their establishments a less attractive target for criminals,” he said. “Crime prevention isn't one magic thing. It's a ton of little things that add up.”
Sgt. Scott Hoffman said police still have not arrested anyone in the recent attempted robbery at SavMor, but said investigators have identified several possible suspects.
The suspect is described as a slightly built woman who, at the time of the incident, was wearing a black hooded sweatshirt and dark sunglasses. Employees at the pharmacist said the woman was acting very timid.
“We're working on it,” Hoffman said. “Last year more (pharmacies) were hit than this year, but this is the first time we've had a female suspect.”
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Ken wrote on Jan 4, 2009 10:54 PM:
" I HAD to take OxyContin for pain and all it did for me was give me a massive migraine. I can't tolerate it. Too bad this doesn't happen to these thieves!
If Bagley was sentenced to 5 years, how is it he's on the street committing the same crimes a year later??? That didn't make sense. "
If Bagley was sentenced to 5 years, how is it he's on the street committing the same crimes a year later??? That didn't make sense. "
Fred Garvin wrote on Jan 4, 2009 9:54 PM: