Last night, 9 motor vehicles were broken into — their windows smashed — on North Avenue across from the Huegenot Children’s Library. The level of motor vehicle larcenies is up significantly from the same time last year. Police blame the increase in expensive electronic equipment left in cars ranging from GPS systems to portable electronic devices like iPods and smartphones.
Larcenies from motor vehicles as a crime category is now approaching 100 incidents in 2012, up about 35%. This does not include incidents where windows were smashed and the car was searched but the owners were unable to tell if anything was missing. Sources tell Talk of the Sound that some cases are simply misclassified to keep the stats down. Most of these thefts occur overnight, when police staffing is the lowest.
Justin Stock got a pretty good list of the recent CARnage from Captain Joseph Schaller.
Elsewhere, there was a burglary at 7 Huegenot, a cell phone store, where thieves smashed the front door and stole numerous cell phones worth thousands of dollars.