Fix Long Beach, a clinic that offers low-cost spay/neuter services and pet surgeries, lost “well over $5,000” in equipment and cash early Monday morning when someone broke into the nonprofit’s facility on Magnolia Avenue, organization CEO Diana Kliche said.
At 1:23 a.m., about 20 minutes after their veterinarian finished an emergency surgery and left, someone put a brick through the glass front door, came in and stole several computers, internet equipment, a safe containing several thousand dollars in cash, and even a video security system, Kliche said.
The nonprofit also hosts a dog rescue at its location near the Washington neighborhood, and animals were on the premises, but they were unharmed. A volunteer was there overnight to take care of puppies with parvovirus but was asleep in a back area during the burglary, Kliche said.
Surveillance video taken before the system was disconnected and stolen shows a man in a plaid shirt who has large headphones over his ears and appears to be wearing gloves, but Kliche said no one with her organization recognizes him.
“It looks like we were targeted—he pretty much knew what he was looking for,” she said, and the person may have known to stay out of the back where the volunteer was sleeping.
As of Monday afternoon, the Long Beach Police Department did not have further information on the suspect and said the investigation into the incident is ongoing.
Kliche said Fix Long Beach had to cancel most of the specialty surgeries it had scheduled for Monday, and will need to replace its computers and other hardware, repair the front door and re-key all the locks.
“It’s definitely setting us back significantly,” she said.
The nonprofit was founded as a mobile clinic in 2013 and has has its brick-and-mortar location since 2020. Kliche said they were previously burglarized at the end of March, when someone with knowledge of the organization stole $5,000 in cash.
A GoFundMe to support the clinic’s reopening can be found here.
Editor’s note: This story has been updated to correct the spelling of Diana Kliche’s last name and to add information from the Long Beach Police Department.