 | |  | |  | |  | |  |
Auto Burglary Prevention
An auto burglary occurs when someone breaks into a locked vehicle and takes property,
and a theft from a vehicle occurs when the vehicle is not locked as many of these were
not. While these are not crimes of violence nor of the highest priority for investigation,
they are obviously important to the victim and if there are any leads in these cases, they
are at least assigned to investigators to at least look into. Some of these thefts can be
quite large, in the thousands of dollars, and many could have been prevented. Most occur
during the night when the car is parked and unattended and when most of the
neighborhood is asleep.
Some helpful hints:
If you have a garage, clean out enough room and put your car in it when itis not being
driven. The proper use of a garage is the best and easiest way to stop a crime of
opportunity from happening to you. Who knows what you may find in your garage. That
long lost address book with all the old friends listed, your child’s baby picture you wanted
to give to his new fiancee and all the other junk that becomes someone’s treasure when
you give it to Goodwill.
If you do not have a garage, always lock your car. I talked about this several weeks ago in
another column. By locking your car you may not only save your own property you may
even keep a young person from the criminal justice system who might never have forced
entry, but couldn’t pass up the opportunity to commit this crime by taking that loose
change you left on the console. You may save a child from beginning the road to crime
and never even know it - What a hero.
Remove property from plain sight for the same reason. Don’t think that by covering up the
cell phone with a jacket will work. Its only a matter of time before you either forget to cover
it up or do so haphazardly and the property is still visible.
I discussed alarms in a prior column too. They may help, but make sure it is a good one
and that you maintain it or as I said before - the neighbors may call about the constant
noise, long after your cell phone, briefcase, camera and other property has been stolen
and sold which doesn’t take but an hour or so.
REPORT SUSPICIOUS PEOPLE:
When you see someone walking down the street looking into every car, that is suspicious.
When you see someone walking by the same car several times and looking into that
specific car, that is suspicious. When you see someone with a coat hanger trying to get
into a car, that is suspicious.
What if you do call on one of these and it turns out to be the owner breaking into his own
car because they left the keys inside? We will contact them, find out and leave them to
their business or call someone to help if they need. They will probably be happy that
someone was watching out for their property.
Honestly, we would rather go out on many of these type of calls than take one extensive
automobile burglary. It takes less of our time in the long run than one report and all the
investigation we do, so please do call.
Besides the hassle of looking for receipts for your insurance company, filing the claim,
waiting for the money, paying the deductible, and then having to go shopping to replace
the stolen items that you will save you if your car is not burglarized.
"CRIME PREVENTION IS EVERYONE’S JOB."
An auto burglary occurs when someone breaks into a locked vehicle and takes property,
and a theft from a vehicle occurs when the vehicle is not locked as many of these were
not. While these are not crimes of violence nor of the highest priority for investigation,
they are obviously important to the victim and if there are any leads in these cases, they
are at least assigned to investigators to at least look into. Some of these thefts can be
quite large, in the thousands of dollars, and many could have been prevented. Most occur
during the night when the car is parked and unattended and when most of the
neighborhood is asleep.
Some helpful hints:
If you have a garage, clean out enough room and put your car in it when itis not being
driven. The proper use of a garage is the best and easiest way to stop a crime of
opportunity from happening to you. Who knows what you may find in your garage. That
long lost address book with all the old friends listed, your child’s baby picture you wanted
to give to his new fiancee and all the other junk that becomes someone’s treasure when
you give it to Goodwill.
If you do not have a garage, always lock your car. I talked about this several weeks ago in
another column. By locking your car you may not only save your own property you may
even keep a young person from the criminal justice system who might never have forced
entry, but couldn’t pass up the opportunity to commit this crime by taking that loose
change you left on the console. You may save a child from beginning the road to crime
and never even know it - What a hero.
Remove property from plain sight for the same reason. Don’t think that by covering up the
cell phone with a jacket will work. Its only a matter of time before you either forget to cover
it up or do so haphazardly and the property is still visible.
I discussed alarms in a prior column too. They may help, but make sure it is a good one
and that you maintain it or as I said before - the neighbors may call about the constant
noise, long after your cell phone, briefcase, camera and other property has been stolen
and sold which doesn’t take but an hour or so.
REPORT SUSPICIOUS PEOPLE:
When you see someone walking down the street looking into every car, that is suspicious.
When you see someone walking by the same car several times and looking into that
specific car, that is suspicious. When you see someone with a coat hanger trying to get
into a car, that is suspicious.
What if you do call on one of these and it turns out to be the owner breaking into his own
car because they left the keys inside? We will contact them, find out and leave them to
their business or call someone to help if they need. They will probably be happy that
someone was watching out for their property.
Honestly, we would rather go out on many of these type of calls than take one extensive
automobile burglary. It takes less of our time in the long run than one report and all the
investigation we do, so please do call.
Besides the hassle of looking for receipts for your insurance company, filing the claim,
waiting for the money, paying the deductible, and then having to go shopping to replace
the stolen items that you will save you if your car is not burglarized.
"CRIME PREVENTION IS EVERYONE’S JOB."
Copyright © 2006 Metropolitan Security & Investigations All Rights Reserved
