Police chief: Solution is to lock your cars

In light of a recent increase in vehicle, break-ins, acting police chief Gabe Matosich has some advice for people to use in avoiding the same fate.

Lock your doors.

Matosich said that 100 percent of the 31 cases of trespassing into a vehicle since the beginning of the year could have been avoided if people simply locked their doors. No vehicle has has been forcibly entered through damaging the vehicle of those reported to police.

Those looking to trespass into vehicle will sometimes walk down streets and check door handles to see if there are any unlocked vehicles. Once they find one, they enter it.

“We don’t have any incident where they’re actually breaking out windows,” Matosich said. “These cases, it seems like they’re just going by, checking the door handles. If they’re open, they’re in.”

May was the most popular month for break-ins with 13.

In terms of motor vehicle theft, there have been seven since January. Some of them have been recovered since, Matosich said. The most popular month was, again, May. It saw five vehicles stolen.

The second biggest piece of advice Matosich gave to people was to not leave your keys in the car. He said that, though this is a small community where people feel safe, it is still not a good idea for people to leave their keys in their vehicles and if people did not do that, the vehicles stolen so far this year would not have been stolen.

There have been 20 counts of theft from a motor vehicle, which is included in the 31 counts of trespassing.

There is another type of count for theft from a motor vehicle, theft of motor vehicle parts, of which there have been six. This includes theft of mirrors, hubcaps — anything that is a part of the vehicle.

Matosich’s last pieces of advice was to consider installing an alarm in vehicles that do not have one, parking in well-lit areas, and putting away any valuable items so that people can not see them as they walk by.

People may also set up a neighborhood watch in their neighborhood. The program works well in the Highland Park area, he said.

“They are effective and they do work,” Matosich said. “It is a good program and it is a way to be vigilant.”