Victims can retrieve stolen goods

Victims whose stolen items were recovered when Atlanta police searched a downtown garage allegedly being operated as an illegal pawn shop can claim their property at City Hall East beginning at noon Wednesday.

Atlanta police spokesman Eric Schwartz said late Tuesday morning that investigators had already contacted three victims who have identified property that was taken from automobiles and in a burglary.

Other victims will need to bring proper documentation of ownership to City Hall East to retrieve goods that were recovered Monday when police searched a garage that detectives said was the base for a major fencing operation.

Police confiscated everything from jewelry to a jackhammer, as 10 officers bolstered by another 10 recruits from the police academy worked through the morning Monday to remove items from the Mills Street garage.

Atlanta police Maj. Khirus Williams told the AJC that police discovered the illegal pawn shop after arresting its alleged operator, David Turner, on Friday night.

Turner, 44, was charged with theft by receiving stolen property and operating an illegal pawn shop. He was released from the Fulton County Jail on $5,000 bond on Saturday.

Monday, police executed a search warrant on the building, which is on a short side street that runs between Marietta and Luckie streets on the west side of downtown.