PFLUGERVILLE, Texas — If you scroll through social media, it's not rare to come across Ring video showing someone rummaging through a vehicle or driving off in a car that's not theirs.
In Pflugerville, there were 305 burglaries of motor vehicles in 2017. In 2018, that number went down to 206, but climbed back up to 257 in 2019.
As far as theft of a motor vehicle, that number was at 45 in 2017, and climbed to 63 in 2018, but stayed around there with 64 in 2019.
When we look specifically at the month of January, there were 16 burglaries of motor vehicles in 2019 and 34 January of 2020.
There were six thefts of a motor vehicle in January 2019 and 12 in 2020.
“I think it increases with a couple of things – increased businesses and growth in the city, population, apartment complexes," said Lt. Kevin Rowley with the Pflugerville Police Department. “According to the numbers, it looks fairly consistent with the rise. The problem is there’s times when you’ll have one incident but it’ll be a whole street.”
Rowley said he doesn't believe this specific kind of crime is a problem, but would say that the growth of the city could contribute.
"I would say that with the increase in residential areas and retail developments and just general population that it certainly could continue," said Rowley.
He also said sometimes these break-ins involve one offender or group for multiple cars and that break-ins happen sometimes with unlocked vehicles.
"We’ve had some recent encounters and reports of vehicle burglaries and we’ve had quite a few of them that have been directly related to unlocked vehicles," said Rowley. “There’s been groups of people that will come into the city and they’ll park on one street and several subjects will get out and check for unlocked doors all up and down the same street.”
Rowley recommends locking your doors and keeping valuables out of sight.
"Other than remove your things of value, obviously don’t leave things that are valuable in clear view from the outside and locking the doors is a big thing," said Rowley.
Pflugerville police have put out two videos in 2019 reminding people of their 9 p.m. routine, and their "if you see something, say something" initiative.
Rowley also recommends people report the incidents right away instead of only posting on Facebook.
One instance in Pflugerville recently of an attempted car burglary can be seen below.
This incident happened in the Katymead neighborhood in Pflugerville earlier this month. Video shows someone opening different doors along a truck parked in a driveway.
Chris Ruiz told KVUE he filed a police report about it and said the people didn't steal with anything. Ruiz said the suspects may be driving a white 2014 or 2015 Kia Sorento.
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