Mercedes Benz employees get ugly surprise Wednesday morning

TUSCALOOSA COUNTY, Ala. (WBRC) - Employees working at the Mercedes plant in Vance got an unpleasant surprise early Wednesday morning. The Tuscaloosa County Sheriff’s Department says a number of vehicles were broken into.

Investigators didn’t have a specific total, but we’re told ‘quite a number.’ These are vehicles that belong to employees, not the cars they make at the plant.

Detectives say it appears this was a quick operation by the culprit or culprits. They rode up next to the vehicles, broke in, grabbed what they could, and sped away. The cars and trucks burglarized were a combination of vehicles that were locked and left unlocked.

If you’re wondering if security on premises heard the car alarms go off, they did. But, you have to remember these are several large parking lots at the plant.

“They do have some security on the premises, but I’ll say with that, that is also a very large facility with several different parking lots, so that’s a lot of coverage they’re having to pay attention to. We don’t have any suspects in custody, but we are following up on some leads,” said Sgt. Josh Hastings of the Tuscaloosa County Sheriff’s Department.

Sgt. Hastings says this is another reminder to not only keep your vehicles locked, but never leave anything of value inside.

Get news alerts in the Apple App Store and Google Play Store or subscribe to our email newsletter here.

Copyright 2023 WBRC. All rights reserved.