GRESHAM, Ore. — The owners of a downtown Gresham tattoo shop are asking for help to identify a man who broke into their business and made off with a bunch of tattooing supplies — plus a priceless family heirloom — the day before Halloween.
Shelly and Bill Gray, artists and owners of Equinox Tattoo Collective, admit that their surveillance video — which caught the break-in, but not much else — doesn't leave investigators with much to go on. But it has been about two weeks from the early morning smash-and-grab, and they're hoping that someone might recognized the suspect.
"You could hear the banging around in the videos where they're just in the business for a whole minute, and you don't know what they're doing," Shelly Gray said. "We only started doing flyers in the last four or five days and we haven't had any response yet."
Gresham police confirmed the reported burglary, but told KGW that the case has been suspended for now due to a lack of tangible leads.
"Mostly they took tattoo supplies, which is really unusual. They took all of our back stock of needles, most of our ink. I would say 70% of our tattoo ink," she said. "It feels like they wanted the supplies for some reason, just because it was so pointed. They left behind computers, iPads, a projector, a brand new Xbox, the point of sale system."
The burglar also took a priceless family heirloom: a vintage sewing machine that belonged to Shelly Gray's grandmother.
"I’ve even been like looking on Craigslist and Facebook, and local pawnshops," she said. "Just to see if I can find this thing that is like the thing that has my grandmother’s handwriting on it. It seems so random and I’m sure they didn’t know or whatever. It’s not about money, it’s about feeling violated."
The owners said friends, neighbors and their landlord stepped up to help right away by supplying them with ink, replacing the broken glass and donating to a GoFundMe page.
"We just barely put ourselves out there, and the community responded tenfold, and just took care of us," Shelly Gray said.