RIO HONDO — The loss of tools belonging to the city may lead to the termination of an employee.
City Administrator Ben Medina recently ordered a police investigation into missing maintenance equipment.
The city property was later found within the inventory list of an area pawn shop.
“We were missing some equipment from our garage,” Medina said. “And we started questioning what happened to that equipment.”
Medina said after the tools were noticed missing, the city police tracked down the stolen property by cross referencing the area pawn shop data base for merchandise serial numbers.
The property was located and returned to Rio Hondo Police after determining the city’s tools matched the serial numbers of the tools at the American Cash Pawn store in San Benito.
“Good thing we took down the serial numbers to our equipment,” Medina said. “Everyone should do that.”
He said all pawn shops have to log merchandise into a database.
“Police can trace lost or stolen equipment and go directly to the pawn shop and identify who pawned it.”
Medina said weed eaters, a pull saw and some other equipment is still missing.
He said the lost equipment was traced to a local business owner.
“Apparently he did not break in,” Medina said. “Somebody sold it to him.”
Because of the ongoing investigation, the city would not release the names of the individuals connected to the loss of the city tools.
There will be more on this story as details are released.
