COLUMBUS, Ohio (WCMH) — Witnesses said around 40 vehicles were damaged in a string of break-ins at a Polaris hotel overnight Friday and Saturday.
A large group of guests was staying at the Hilton Columbus Polaris last weekend for the Goodguys Summit Racing Car Show at the Ohio Expo Center.
Many of the guests were driving pickup trucks and hauling trailers full of equipment and/or cars. Frank Cejmer drove down from the Detroit area for the show. He was greeted with a rude awakening when he got to his truck Saturday morning.
“As soon as I walked up to my truck, I’m like, ‘Why is that truck bright inside?’ and I looked in the window and I’m like, ‘Oh no, I locked it,’” he said. “And then, like, a bomb went off inside that truck. I’m like, ‘Oh, Lord, they got everybody’s truck,’ and I stopped counting at seven. As long as those dome lights don’t turn on, alarms don’t go off. So, they crawled in the window. He crawled back out the window.”
A Columbus Police report confirms there were “multiple” break-ins to trucks parked outside the Hilton, either in front of the building or behind the hotel in extended parking areas. Witnesses said there had to be close to 40 trucks with windows smashed.
“My whole window was laying on the ground,” Jeff Lawrence, who also traveled from Michigan, said. “You know, just felt very violated. It’s a weird feeling, you know, to know that when you’re sleeping, somebody is out there violating your property. I opened it by, you know, reaching through the window and unlocking it. Open the door, shut off the alarm. That told me they probably climbed in the broken window to prevent that. So obviously very experienced people doing this.”
Lawrence noticed not much was taken from his truck.
“I had some valuables that they didn’t touch, which was really weird, but I had two magazines for my handgun that I carry on me that were in there fully loaded,” Lawrence said. “Not the gun, just the magazines, that they had took, had taken, and then the police told us that, yeah, mostly they were just looking for guns because they had left laptops and tools and other valuable things.”
Jimmy Portale drove more than two hours from Niles, Ohio, to attend the show with a friend. His truck was fine after Friday night.
“Honestly, I didn’t, I didn’t think anything of it,” he said. “I really did not expect our hotel to get hit again, back-to-back nights. I figured, you know, security would be stepped up. I figured police presence would be stepped up.”
Then the next morning, he got a call from his friend, who told him he had to come see this.
“My truck’s brand new, it’s, I’ve had it for four months,” Portale said. “The paint was destroyed on the passenger side. The window trim destroyed. You know, I walk out there. I couldn’t believe it. And they took nothing. They didn’t touch my money. They left my sunglasses. I had a Milwaukee Impact in case of, you know, a flat tire or something on a truck or trailer; left a Milwaukee Impact. They left my, my Yeti cooler.”
A Hilton hotel representative said the Polaris property is independently owned and operated. The hotel’s manager said they were aware of the break-ins and that a security officer patrols the parking lot from 8 p.m. to 8 a.m. and was on duty those nights. She also said there is a second security officer who patrols the parking lots behind the hotel.
“Somebody failed somewhere: either the security company failed the hotel or the hotel failed the customers,” Lawrence said. “You know, when I got there, I saw the security cars. I thought there was only one. Apparently, there were two, and I, it almost gave me a, I guess, a false sense of security. If there’s two guys roaming around that whole area, how were they able to break into 17 trucks the first night and ten trucks the second night and steal a truck in a trailer? It’s just, somebody failed somewhere. If they were driving around all night, there’s no way that many cars should have been broken into. So either not enough guys driving around or they weren’t doing their job.”
“Two security cars,” Ceimer said. “They never got out of the cars, but they were there. Come on, you knew this was happening the night before. Security should have been stepped up.”
The car show went off without a hitch, and each guest said they had a great time and enjoyed the hotel and the area as well.
“Everybody at the hotel, they were outstanding and then when we, you know, we told them what happened, they were just shocked and, you know, felt horrible about it,” Lawrence said.
But the break-ins really soured the experience for a lot of people.
“We had a great time,” Ceimer said. “Just that when I came back, got up in the morning, it ruined my day.”
Many of the guests have been attending the Goodguys car show for years. Portale said they made their decision on where to stay based on past experiences.
“We were at another hotel about six years ago, and five cars were stolen out of that parking lot on Saturday morning, and we actually left that hotel because of the lack of security,” Portale said. “And that’s why we showed up at the Hilton: because, you know, they bragged about paying for extra security.”
While many of the trucks didn’t have anything stolen, all the victims NBC4 spoke to said they felt violated and that nothing was done about it.
“It affects everybody,” Lawrence said. “It affects our insurance rates. It affects the economy down there. It, you know, leaves a bad image on the city down there. I never expected any of this. Just very fortunate that it wasn’t worse, I guess, and that, you know, nobody got hurt.”
Now these guests are second-guessing whether they will come back to Columbus because of this experience.
“I don’t want to risk going back and having the same thing happen again or worse, you know?” Lawrence said. “Not only our truck and trailer, but our classic cars that we put a lot of time and energy into. If the hotel or the security company or somebody can call Goodguys, can call us and say, ‘Hey, we’ve heard about it, we’re going to make some changes, we’re going to do things better,’ I might consider it, but, you know, it’s, there’s a lot of people, when we were checking out, that said, ‘I’m not coming back here ever again.’ It’s unfortunate because it’s money going into that economy down there that may not come back.”
“I may ride down with somebody else in their car or something like that, but I will not take my rig down, there’s no way possible,” Cejmer said.
“I don’t know if I would ever want to bring anything of value back to the city of Columbus again,” Portale said. “I am hoping that Goodguys car show decides to move out of this city if they want to keep it in Ohio.”
