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Burglars return to pharmacy to steal more drugs
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Thousands of dollars in drugs have been stolen from Manteca’s Striplin Pharmacy for the second time in four months by the same thieves.
 Located on the ground floor of a two-story medical building in the 1100 block of Norman Drive, the thieves again disappeared into the dark of the parking lot early Sunday morning as Manteca Police were responding to the alarm.
An in-house security camera identified at least one of the burglars to be a “return customer,” who was caught on video tape in January entering the pharmacy and jumping over the front counter and bagging large amounts of drugs before exiting the front door with his partner.  
Manteca Police Sergeant Mike Aguilar said the theft occurred at about 5:30 a.m. Sunday. The pair was out the front door and into the parking lot within four minutes of entering the business.  Three patrol units responded and set up a perimeter around the medical center that houses numerous medical and doctors’ offices but found no one.
Pharmacist Cheryl Striplin said she has been getting questionable phone calls from men supposedly posing as doctors, asking if the store had a certain drug or drugs in stock and what quantity was available, because they were in need of multiple bottles of prescription cough medicine and pain killers – for instance.
Pharmacy staffers called the doctors back at their practices and were told those physicians were actually on vacation for two or three weeks and couldn’t be reached – causing them to question even more the validity of the prescription calls. 
Once again, the outside glass entry door that leads into the lobby of numerous medical offices had been broken out and the solid pharmacy door broken down to gain entry.  To prevent further break-ins, the pharmacy has purchased two time-lock safes that they use to protect their most expensive and toxic drugs that are in stock.
A poster on the presently boarded up front door gives notice of the time-lock safes.
 
To contact Glenn Kahl, email gkahl@mantecabulletin.com.