Tulsa Police arrest man suspected of burglarizing multiple businesses in 4 different counties

BRISTOW, Okla. — A major arrest was made by Tulsa Police after multiple gas stations and liquor stores in four different counties were burglarized over the span of a year.

Bristow and Tulsa Police worked together on the investigation using flock cameras and surveillance video to identify one of the suspects and their vehicles.

FOX23 spoke with a business owner who is now out more than $20,000.

The local business owner said he had never had this issue and was shocked when he got the call.

As soon as he got into town, he grabbed the store's surveillance video and contacted the Bristol Police Department to find those responsible.

“I’ve been here 20 years and never had a break-in like this. Never had a break-in period,” said Kenny Cok, owner of Kenny’s Convenient Store.

His store was one of many throughout Green Country allegedly burglarized by the same people.

FOX23 got ahold of surveillance video from the incident.

“They got out a big landscape rock, the smaller person gets two roll-around trash cans and they come to the front door. He tosses it through the glass and shatters it. They bring both trash cans in and just start loading up cigarettes as fast as they could, but they never seemed to be in a real hurry. You can tell they had done this before,” Cok said.

Cok said he was out of town when everything happened, but said this video was a big help to police.

“My morning girl shows up and said hey we've been broken into. Glass shattered all over inside the store, out in the parking lot, cigarettes scattered all over the floor. Said we've got a problem here,” Cok said.

He said they stole 249 boxes of cigarettes worth more than $20,000.

Bristow Chief of Police Kendra Raney said burglaries similar to this one had been going on for months.

After Cok’s break-in and after finding out about similar cases in Pryor, Collinsville, Owasso and Tulsa, she said they were determined to find the suspects.

“We knew it was a gray Jeep so we narrowed it down on our flock camera search in the time they would have left and got a hit. Also, from Kenny's store he made me aware that another vehicle pulled over by the school administration building,” Raney said.

Raney said she spent all day looking through their video and came up with another tip.

“Found the white SUV and was able to narrow that search down on our flock search also and got the tag number from that,” Raney said.

After giving the information to Tulsa Police they were able to arrest Michael McCalister for the alleged serial burglaries.

Cok said though his store will be fine, he was glad to see his community rally behind him after this unpleasant incident.

“The silver lining in this story, after all that is said and done, I had a couple of little young girls who came to me over a year ago trying to raise money for swim school. They came by the Monday afterward, brought me pictures, and brought change in Ziploc bags from their piggy banks because they were scared that I was going to have to close down,” Cok said.

Cok said this is a minor setback for all local businesses who were affected, but he hopes they all are able to get justice and police find the other suspects involved.

McCalister was booked into Tulsa County jail on six second-degree burglary charges as a convicted felon.