PORTLAND, Ore. (KOIN) — About 10 years ago, Jasmine Nguyen and her husband opened a pharmacy near Southeast 82nd and Powell. Over the years their business, Pharmacy.com, was repeatedly broken into and damaged.
They put up wrought iron bars and plenty of security cameras. But that didn’t stop someone from breaking in again — and it didn’t prepare them for what happened around 5 a.m. Sunday.
At that time, a thief broke in and set off the security alarms. Nguyen and her husband rushed to secure their store and found evidence of someone filling a bin to try and steal prescription drugs.
But while they were cleaning up the mess, they had no idea the thief was still hiding inside their store.
Surveillance video captures a burglar moments before breaking into the Pharmacy.com location in SE Portland, January 16, 2022 (Courtesy to KOIN) 
On the left, remnants from a 5 a.m. break-in, and on the right, later destruction as the burglar left the Pharmacy.com location in SE Portland, January 16, 2022 (Courtesy to KOIN) 
An out-of-place ceiling tile inside the Pharmacy.com location in SE Portland, January 16, 2022 (Courtesy to KOIN) 
Prescription medicine containers strewn on the floor inside the Pharmacy.com location in SE Portland, January 16, 2022 (Courtesy to KOIN) 
Broken glass outside the Pharmacy.com location in SE Portland, January 16, 2022 (Courtesy to KOIN)
Nguyen said her husband “did not even see him. He was on the right hand side of the bathroom, and my husband was on the left hand side. What would have happened if he saw him? We don’t even know.”
They only realized the burglar was inside later, after they boarded up their building and left. Within the hour. the security system went off again.
The second time they rushed to the store they found another shelf broken — which someone used to climb out and left a mess of medicine on the ground. They spotted damage from someone climbing up the door frames, and a ceiling tile was left out of place.
And all of their surveillance cameras had been unplugged. There was even more broken glass on the ground outside.
This was the last straw, Nguyen said. She’s moving the pharmacy to another part of town.
“Here is a good location but the area around here is not good anymore,” she told KOIN 6 News. “We have more homeless people around here and lots of people coming in and stealing.”
It’s another blow for the Nguyens. They also own Hillsboro Pharmacy that was severely damaged in a 4-alarm blaze at the Weil’s Arcade building on January 2.
But she’s sad to leave this place, the first pharmacy she opened a decade ago.
Anyone with information is asked to contact Portland police.