ATLANTA — Multiple UPS employees said they arrived to work Sunday night, only to find their vehicles broken into a few hours later. Two of those victims tell 11Alive they want better security at their place of employment.
Chris McGrew's truck was one of the ones affected.
"I get a call from another driver telling me my truck, the window had been busted out and damaged under my door," McGrew said.
His truck normally sits at the UPS parking lot on Fulton Industrial Boulevard overnight Sunday through Friday while he's on the road as a feeder driver.
"To be out on the road and have to worry if your truck is gonna be okay and if your stuff is going to be there... that's the most frustrating part about it," he said. "There was nothing I could do."
Another victim that same night was a UPS mechanic who’s been with the company for 15 years. He spoke to 11Alive over the phone and asked to not be identified.
"It's really disheartening, knowing you're going there to make a living to support your family and you got to be in there the whole time worried your truck is gonna get broken into," he said.
The two of them and three other employees sent photos of their vehicles which they say were also broken into Sunday night. The group says this is not the first time this has happened.
"Mine was part of 12 to 14 other vehicles that have been broken into [Sunday], the same night. From what I heard it was 18 cars last week," McGrew said. "I don't know about this Christmas but I know last Christmas it was every night that there was cars getting broken into."
The employees said after this happened recently, UPS added a guard shack at the front.
"But nobody's in it," the mechanic said. "So everybody just pulls in a parking lot."
He said he doesn't blame UPS but wish his employer would do more to give him some peace of mind.
"At the end of the day, it's a great place to work. It's just not in a great location and there's not enough security there to make sure our personal belongings are not going to get destroyed or stolen," he told 11Alive's Paola Suro.
This UPS location is just two minutes down the road from where Atlanta Police said a UPS driver was kidnapped and carjacked at gunpoint in December 2021.
Employees say if safety isn't a priority, it'll be another disaster waiting to happen.
“All it’s going to take is one person to walk up on them and scare them and they can hurt really bad... if they get shot or something and then their loved ones at home will never see them again," McGrew said.
McGrew said it will likely cost him up to $3,000 to fix his car; he'll need to get a new window, new door, and get paintwork done.
"[UPS] told me it was all on me," he said. "To turn it in on my insurance. I'll be paying for that for a while because that would cause my premiums on my insurance to go up."
Meanwhile, the mechanic said he lost $2,000 on electronics stolen from inside his vehicle that night.
"Of course your insurance don't cover anything so you're basically out everything that they steal from you," he said.
11Alive reached out to the shipping and receiving company, asking what UPS is doing about this, whether it has installed better security cameras and, if so, how many. It replied saying:
"This is an unfortunate situation, and we are cooperating with the Atlanta Police Department. We do not comment on active investigations and defer to the investigating authorities."