A man was caught on surveillance video climbing to a second-floor balcony and stealing two birds in a cage from a Hialeah home.
The birds’ owner, Miriam Cruz, was visibly frustrated as she spoke to our sister station Telemundo 51 about the crime at her apartment complex on West 12th Avenue and 47th Place on Thursday.
She said the birds are pets she's had for two years.
“I felt terrible and scared, because if I would've been there, I would've had a heart attack," Cruz said in Spanish. "It's not just the birds, it's that he dared to jump onto the property."
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Video shows how the man drove into the complex's parking lot on a moped and stopped just under Cruz's apartment. He got off of the moped, checked his phone, looked around and stretched, before turning and starting to climb.
“He hoists himself over a fence, goes up to the second floor and enters my neighbor’s balcony to take the birds,” Cruz's neighbor, Maria, said.
The pet thief then comes back down from the balcony, holding the birds in their cage, and takes off.
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Other neighbors checked their security cameras and balconies, worried that their own beloved pets could be in danger.
“It's scary. If they can take birds, they can take dogs. They can take anything,” Maria said. “It’s not right to do this to somebody, and an older person whose little birds have a sentimental value."
Cruz said the theft was brazen.
"There's cameras everywhere, and I'm guessing he was aware of it, and he still did it," she said.
Police are investigating.
Maria said she wishes the thief would just "bring the little birds back." Cruz is not hopeful that he will.
