SAN ANTONIO – San Antonio police are searching for two men who they said used a U-Haul to yank a cash machine out of the ground early Friday at a Northeast Side car wash.
The theft was thwarted by a San Antonio police officer who happened to be near the Auto Spa Laserwash.
Police said the officer, who was off duty at the time, was driving by the car wash around 5 a.m. when he heard a loud noise and went to investigate. The officer spotted two men loading the machine, which is used to collect payments from customers at the automated car wash, into a U-Haul truck.
The men jumped into the truck and sped off, knocking down a concrete block and leaving tire tracks in the grass, authorities said. Police said the driver also nearly hit the officer in his car.
A short time later, police dispatchers began receiving calls from people in a nearby neighborhood about a U-Haul that they saw speeding through the area with a chain dragging behind it on the ground and causing sparks.
"I thought it was a plumbing truck, at first, and I thought something had fallen out of the back," said Ken Kephart, who saw the truck during his morning walk. "Obviously they knew the chain was there. I was going to try to flag them down and tell them that they were dragging the chain, but they were in a hurry."
Officers found the truck parked along a greenbelt off Cima Linda Street. They said a K-9 officer led them to the cash machine, which they found nearby behind Kephart's home.
Police said the machine was sitting on a dolly in a culvert. Officers at the scene said they suspect that the pair used the dolly to haul the machine through the grass and then tried to hide it in the culvert.
While officers recovered the stolen property they did not find the men.