A man found inside a closed Best Buy store in Pasadena was taken into custody on suspicion of burglary while customers waited outside for a Pokémon card release on Wednesday morning, April 29.
Around 1:15 a.m., Best Buy security notified authorities of a man inside the store on the 3400 block of East Foothill Boulevard, according to Pasadena police Lt. Tim Bundy.
“They were monitoring the live cameras for the store, and they saw that there was somebody inside their closed and locked store,” Bundy stated.
A manager greeted the officers and opened the door. Police discovered the suspect, a 45-year-old vagrant, and detained him without incident, Bundy said. There was no evidence of forcible entry.
The suspect told police that he went in during business hours and was just locked in. According to investigators, he ate snacks and drank drinks from the store before removing headphones from the package. Bundy claimed that the suspect had already been contacted by police regarding theft.
Police had no information on the burglary’s connection to the Pokémon card release. According to reports, the suspect avoided mentioning the cards.
“They (police) said there’s someone in the building,” said Tony Funtes, who was waiting outside the store for the card to drop.
According to Funtes, collectors were anticipating the release of Pokémon 151 cards. He’d been waiting since 11 p.m., while others had arrived earlier that night.
Thieves do occasionally target Pokémon cards and other valuable collectibles.
In February, robbers tunneled through the wall of a collectibles store in Anaheim, stealing $180,000 in items, including hundreds of dollars’ worth of Pokémon cards.
In December 2025, $100,000 in product was stolen from a sports card store in Burbank, including Pokémon cards.
Leave a Reply