MPD: "Nobody should leave a gun in their car,"

[Pat McGarrity]

These must be endorsements of our Restaurant Bill?


"Cars do not make good safes,"

Memphis Police Director Larry Godwin

"Nobody should leave a gun in their car," said Scott. "That's stupid. If you're not going to have your gun with you, it's not doing you any good in the car."

MPD Maj. Joe Scott

http://www.commercialappeal.com/news/20 ... r-vehicle/

Home › Local › Greater Memphis
Thieves loot valuables from parked cars
By Hank Dudding (Contact), Memphis Commercial Appeal
Sunday, November 30, 2008

If you're like about 30 or so other Memphians today, a skilled professional is giving your car the once-over.

And not in a good way.

In neighborhoods rich and poor, residential and commercial, sticky-fingered entrepreneurs are smashing, jimmying and prying their way into vehicles, then walking away with about as much as they'd have gotten if they'd squeezed right through your bedroom window.


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Amanda Hammock, 34, of Memphis lived a nightmare of broken glass and stolen property that began Nov. 10 when her work and personal cars were among five broken into at The Villas at Chickasaw, 2681 Central Terrace.

She lost several winter coats she'd just gotten out of storage. But it got worse.

On Nov. 17, she was picking up her daughter at Grace St. Luke's Episcopal School, 246 S. Belvedere, at about 5 p.m. when someone came in and asked if she was driving a Honda Element.

She said she was.

"Someone just broke into it."

"I said, 'That was last week.' She said, 'No, right now.'"

Hammock couldn't get her mind around that one.

"I didn't believe it. I had to walk out and look at it."

Someone had shattered the window of the Honda, rummaged under a blanket in a gap between the seats and stolen her Coach purse containing her wallet, her new iPhone, her iPod, a Sony camera, several hundred dollars in cash and the only key she had to her personal car.

Police reports from all over the city tell a similar tale as thieves rake in purses, wallets, laptop computers, GPS units, all types of personal electronic devices and hundreds of guns, much of it left in plain sight.

"Cars do not make good safes," said Memphis Police Director Larry Godwin.

And then there's the hassle of repairing smashed windows and broken locks.

Through last Monday, Memphis police had recorded a total of 9,381 vehicle break-ins in 2008. That's only 618 fewer than the 9,999 break-ins reported during all of last year.

Through Nov. 1, the Shelby County Sheriff's Office had investigated 810 car break-ins, compared with 733 over the same period in 2007.

"This crime is affecting everybody," said Maj. Howell Starnes, assistant commander of the MPD's organized crime unit.

Police are simply overwhelmed by the volume of break-ins and they're frustrated by the revolving door at 201 Poplar for the people they do manage to catch.

A Memphis police campaign urges citizens to "Stow It, Don't Show It," and the Shelby County Sheriff's Office urges people to "Park Smart," but clearly many people aren't listening.

"The citizens can stop this crime today," said MPD Maj. Joe Scott. "If you don't leave anything in your car, nothing's going to be taken."

The people who are taking the belongings may not have college degrees, but they know their craft pretty well.

For one thing, they know where to hunt. They like the volume of cars at apartment complexes and shopping centers, but they also like parks and workout centers, where exercisers often leave their valuables in the car.

Even steps people take to protect their valuables often don't work, police say, because thieves are watching.

For instance, when you walk your purse or other items to the safety of your trunk in full view of the world, you're asking for trouble.

"We had people we caught ... watching women do that first thing in the morning," Starnes said. "So what'd they do? They went over there and popped the little window, hit the trunk release and went in and got their wallets."

Police also caution people not to leave guns in their cars; 550 have been stolen from cars in the city so far this year.

"Nobody should leave a gun in their car," said Scott. "That's stupid. If you're not going to have your gun with you, it's not doing you any good in the car."

Thieves often act quickly after a break-in, using debit and credit cards for shopping sprees and often turning IDs over to people who open accounts in victims' names.

Once the crime has been committed, don't look for police to employ a full-court press, although officers are trying get fingerprints from as many cars as they can.

"Can we ... dedicate the same resources to every one of them? Ain't no way. The city can't afford it. Taxpayers can't afford it," Scott said.

But even when police make an arrest, the people they catch often don't spend much time in jail.

"Property crime is not going to get any time," Starnes said.

"These people get (bonds of) $1,000, $500, sometimes $5,000 ... which is nothing to get out of jail," he said. "Or they stay in for the court date, and they get (sentenced to) time served."

It's a matter of judicial priorities and weak sentencing laws, police said.

If "you ask the people what they want, 'Do you want us to let out ... robbers and murderers, or do you want to let a car burglar go?' People say, 'Well, I want to keep the robbers and murderers in.' So they let the car burglars go," Starnes said.

Even though the numbers amount to a staggering total, there aren't nearly as many break-in specialists as the figures suggest, police say.

"If we could put 20 people in this city in jail for 10 years on the car break-ins, I guarantee you they would drop," Starnes said.

Shaken by her three break-ins, Hammock can't approach her car without wondering if it has happened again, and she's still picking glass out of the nooks and crannies.

"I guess I feel a little less naive," she said.

But now she's employing a new strategy: She keeps nothing in her car.

-- Hank Dudding: 529-2565

PROTECT Yourself

Here are some tips to reduce the threat of having a vehicle burglarized:

Lock the doors.

Don't leave cell phones, laptops and other electronic devices in the car.

If possible, lock valuables in the trunk before arriving at your destination. You never know who might be watching.

Report any suspicious people loitering or cruising parking lots and residential areas.

-- Shelby County Sheriff's Office and Memphis Police Department