Full Notification

Car break-ins for the LA Downtown area are up 106 crimes over last year, so far. The majority of that increase occurred between January and March when the average number of weekly car burglaries doubled.

"Since then, we've focused our efforts on narcotics enforcement and conducting sting arrests," said Lt. Paul Vernon. "We've since seen the car burglaries drop to more normal levels, but we're still fighting the extraordinary numbers now."

And police are fighting driver apathy, too, as last week, out of the 14 car break-ins, 6 of them occurred to cars where the driver did NOT lock the car.

"We want to remind everyone, Lock it, or Lose it!" Lt. Vernon added.

Currently, car burglaries are just slightly lower than last month, and police received three more reports over the past 4 weeks, compared to the same 4 weeks last year.

"We (the police) will keep the pressure on through stings and narcotics arrests, but we need the public to be more diligent in locking their cars, every time."

Release by:
Lt. Paul Vernon
Central Detective Division