Taken from Keokuk restaurant
Read more: Local, Crime, Salvation Army, Kettle, Stolen, Burglary, Keokuk, Ogo's
KEOKUK -- There's a grinch making its way around Keokuk.
Sometime overnight Wednesday, someone broke into Ogo's Restaurant and Buffet.
They left behind quite a mess, and only took one thing, a Salvation Army kettle.
At this poing, what is your major concern with the kettle being stolen?
"Our major concern is someone would take this kettle and try to solicitate funds from other people," says Major Diana Amick of the Keokuk Salvation Army.
This is the type of kettle that was stolen. The Salvation Army sets them out on counters at restaurants and gas stations in the community.
"Most times, people drop change in them, but sometimes they drop in nice size bill and sometimes checks," says Major Amick.
The kettle at Ogo's had been there for a couple of weeks. I talked to the owner of Ogo's who told me he didn't notice the kettle was missing at first, because he didn't even know his restaurant had been broken into. He just hadn't been to that part of the building yet.
"They had taken the siding, the actual boards off the building, the insulation and pushed in the drywall and paneling and pushed it all in," says Ogo owner Kevin Gregory.
That created a huge mess. Gregory then tells me he thinks the burglars ran through the dining room, passed up the cash register and just grabbed the kettle from the counter, and bolted.
"It seems very strange to me becasue there were other things of value in there. Whether the individual just got scared and left hastily, or grabbed this randomly," says Keokuk Police Chief Tom Crew.
Keokuk Police Chief Tom Crew tells me his officers were able to find some of the items used to break into the restaurant.
"Why someone would steal a kettle from the Salvation Army with money meant to go to needy people in our community. People of all walks of life contribute to those kettles, and I'll never understand. We are aggressively looking into this burglary," says Chief Crew.
"If someone is in need and they stole the kettle, hopefully, they would come to us and ask for assistance," says Major Amick.
This is the second time this year Ogo's has been broken into.
This past spring, the burglar turned himself in.
The owner hopes the same thing happens this go around.
