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Surveillance camera footage of A Flock of Seagulls 1999 Ford F-350 equipment van being stolen at 2:16 am on 7/21 from the Comfort Inn in Downey, CA. If you have any information please contact the Downey Police Department at (562) 861-0771 .
By Brian Hews
For members of the popular 80’s rock band “Flock of Seagulls” this past weekend turned out to be a bad trip while playing two live performances at a trendy Bellflower night club.
Footage captures “Flock of Seagulls” stolen vehicle in Downey, California
Someone drove off with more than $70,000 worth of musical instruments, and “priceless” recording demos that were locked inside of the group’s deluxe touring car in a hotel parking lot in Downey late Saturday night.
Joe Rodriguez, Lead Guitar player for Flock of Seagulls told Hews Media Group-Community Newspaper in an a phone interview on Tuesday that the group was in performing at “That 80’s Bar” for two days this past weekend to anxious fans who have followed them for the past three decades around the globe.
Rodriguez along with popular lead singer Mike Score and other members of the band were staying at the Comfort Inn at 9438 Firestone Boulevard over this past weekend where the theft took place.
“We had gotten done with our show over in Bellflower and returned back to the Comfort Inn where we were staying. We had stopped to get something to eat and went back to the hotel, at after 1 a.m.,” Rodriguez said.
“By 3 a.m. I was asleep, and Mike (Score) woke me up at 9 a.m. and asked me if I had moved the vehicle with all of our gear,” Rodriguez said.
When the two went down stairs they had realized that the vehicle had been taken, “and we started to panic.”
Rodriguez said they had parked the long stretch style car in a handicapped spot at the Comfort Inn, with permission from hotel management.
Rodriguez and Score asked a Clerk working at the hotel front desk if they could check the security camera, and when they did, they captured a man walking up to the car at 2:16 am, get inside, and drive off onto Firestone Boulevard.
“It was a sick feeling, and we do not believe that this was a random robbery. Someone planned this in our opinion,” Rodriguez told HMG-CN on Tuesday.
“No doubt that we were being followed. This was planned. We played the New Wave Bar in the past three or four more times, and never had any problems,” Rodriguez said.
Members of the Downey Police Department are investigating the crime, and Rodriguez and Score have taken to social media to get the word out about their plight.
Score is planning on leaving back to Scotland in a couple of days, but now those plans are up in the air.
Rodriguez said that at least four to five custom made guitars were taken, a drum set, electronic gear, Score’s pricy wardrobe, and encrypted files from a new solo album.
“We need our fans and our friends and the police here in Downey to help us find the person or persons who planned this robbery,” Rodriguez.
The video of the theft is posted below. Rodriguez and Score and other members of Flock of Seagulls took a cell phone video from the hotel’s security cameras and have posted it on You Tube.
