Tampa Bay Skating Academy Hit By Car Thieves

The Pinellas County Sheriff's Office is investigating three break-ins at the Tampa Bay Skating Academy (TBSA) at 255 Forest Lakes Blvd. near Westchase, according to Cecilia Barreda, Pinellas County Sheriff's Office spokesperson.

It's unclear when the break-ins occurred, and the sheriff's office has not yet released specific details about the incidents. When additional information is released, we will pass it along to you.

Barreda does offer this advice: "Don't leave valuables in plain view."

East Lake Patch reader Barb Walker takes her kids to skate at TBSA and informed us that she was at the skating rink Saturday night and saw sheriff's deputies investigating reports of possible break-ins. On Wednesday, Walker went back to the skating rink and took photos of broken glass in the parking lot that she believes is from the incidents.

Below is Walker's description of what she saw Saturday night. Note: in her description, Walker refers to deputies as "sheriff". 

"On Saturday, January 12, we went to the evening skate which I believe was 6:30 to 8:30.  We parked on the right side of the building near a light.  

We had removed a laptop from our minivan prior to going to the rink and hid an iPhone before we went in.  I won’t leave an iPhone in the car at all again!  

We left at the end of the session and just after we went out the front entrance we saw a law enforcement officer, sheriff, I believe, go into the building through another door.  

Perhaps they were going to look at the video from the cameras.  We rounded the corner to go around the right corner of the building and we saw the sheriff talking to someone who had obviously had their window smashed. 

We were pretty shocked already and then we got to our car and saw that the car next to us also had the window shattered.  

We took a look at our car and it was untouched.  Then we saw that another car to our right also had a window smashed out. The girl was crying and saying ‘My purse, my purse”.  

It was pretty alarming because skating is such good clean fun and you don’t expect that when you come out.  

I asked the sheriff why my car didn’t get hit and he said probably because I didn’t have anything visible to take.  

I have a car magnet that also has the law enforcement number to call for Wildlife Alerts and I wonder if they might have left it because of that. 

I have less than 2000 miles on my car and would have been extremely upset had this happened to me. 

We frequent the skating rink, because it is such a great place, but we do worry about not being so lucky next time."

-Barb Walker

On Saturday, Jan. 12 three cars were broken into at Ed Radice Park during Keystone Little League tryouts. The Hillsborough County Sheriff's Office is investigating that case.