Burglars Targeting Kaiser Permanente Offices

DENVER (CBS4) - Metro police are trading information to try to solve a series of break-ins this month at Kaiser Permanente offices.

There were four incidents in four different cities in the last two weeks. The latest burglary happened at Kaiser's East Denver Medical Offices at Alameda and Havana. Police say early Sunday morning two men broke into the building through a side door and then ransacked the pharmacy. It was the fourth incident at a Kaiser facility.

Police from four different cities are now sharing details to see if there's a connection.

Aurora's Smoky Hill office was the first Kaiser facility targeted back on Feb. 6. Three days later there was a break-in at the Parker location. On Feb.16 a prescription pad was stolen from the Centennial office.

"Why they went for Kaiser, I don't know why they're doing that, that's a mystery to us," Sonny Jackson with Denver police said.

Kaiser officials say surveillance video shows that in all but the Centennial incident, one or two men broke into the medical offices during off hours. The burglars spent under 5 minutes inside. In two cases they stole petty cash from the pharmacies.

"The petty cash is simply used for making change, so not a substantial amount of cash," Roland Lyon with Kaiser Permanente said.

The suspicion is the thieves were after narcotics.

"Anytime you're breaking into a medical facility, especially a pharmaceutical facility, that concerns us because you probably have somebody motivated by drugs or a drug habit, which makes them extremely dangerous," Jackson said.

Kaiser officials believe their current security kept the burglars from the drugs.

"Our drugs are fairly well secured, especially the narcotics that are on hand, so those are in a secured area and the perpetrators have not been able to break into that and the hope is that they will not be able to do," Lyon said.

Now Kaiser is taking even more precautions, including increasing surveillance and security patrols.

"The security and the safety of our members, patients and staff is number one priority," Lyon said.

Kaiser officials say they hope the break-ins aren't an inside job but they're not ruling out any possibilities.