EAST ST. LOUIS, Ill. — An East St. Louis animal shelter helps low-income pet owners keep their pets by offering affordable services. Leaders at the Gateway Pet Guardians want to know who would break in after hours and take off with items inside.
Amid the sounds of dogs barking and little kitties answering when greeted, is a sense of shock among the vibrant team that keeps the non-profit going.
"It puts an eerie feeling in your stomach to have people that don't belong in here with your animals that are vulnerable at the time,” said Jill Henke.
It was just before 3 a.m. Thursday, when surveillance video showed men enter the shelter on North 15th Street. The shelter hopes someone will recognize the bold thieves.
"We have one video of the guy, tip-toeing down the hallway,” Henke said. "They ate food (and) drank energy drinks out of the refrigerator."
They then made off with the goods, including a laptop used for note-taking.
"(We used to) report any behavior concerns, any illnesses … that's used regularly and throughout the day from our animal care team. We’re going to have to replace that,” she said.
They also took drugs that treat animals.
"Trazodone, which is a sedative, gabapentin, which is an anti-inflammatory, and carprofen, which is our equivalent of 800mg ibuprofen … it doesn't have a good street value and you’re certainly not going to get high on it," she said.
Leaders aren't sure why the thieves felt the need to target them.
"If you’re desperate enough to break in somewhere and you’re hungry of course I feel bad for you; however, we can't go about it that way … we have some things we’re going to do on our part in terms of additional security things that we’re going to put in place. We’re a nonprofit animal shelter and that stuff is going to cost money,” Henke said.
After five years of being in East St Louis, the shelter said it hasn’t had any problems and they love the sense of community they have there.
The shelter said it wondered if it was outsiders who did this. A fundraiser has been organized to help replace what was lost and upgrade security.
Donate at https://gatewaypets.org/donate/. You could also mail or drop off donations at the shelter at 725 N. 15th Street.