Suspects try stealing Family Dollar safe with U-Haul

DETROIT (WJBK) - Detroit police are investigating an attempted robbery at a Family Dollar Wednesday morning. The would-be thieves used a U-Haul to smash through the walls of the building.

"I heard something sound like it was smashing and smashing," says Elder Varnado, who lives nearby.

He watched for roughly twenty minutes as some bold bandits repeatedly crashed a U-Haul into the store on Jefferson Avenue, near McClellan Avenue, to try and steal the safe.

"They spoke Spanish because I couldn't understand a word they were saying," he adds.

Police say once the suspects broke through the front of the building they went inside, hooked a chain up to the store's safe then tried to drag it out with the U-Haul. The chain eventually busted, though, forcing them to leave the safe behind in the middle of the parking lot.

"They must have been going to the lookout car. He might have been helping to do stuff, because they kept going back and forth to the car and come back to the truck," Varnado says.

We're told responding officers spotted the U-Haul and briefly pursued the driver before the suspects jumped out and ran off.

It is a crime that obviously created a whole lot of damage and inconvenience. Now those who relied on this store must go somewhere else while crews clean it up and work make it safe again.

I think this is terrible. They just begin to try to revitalize this area and then this happened," Varnado says. 

Police haven't yet released a description of the suspects. Authorities are reviewing surveillance video of the store.