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Police say car break-in reports on the rise

Posted on August 6, 2009 by Staff

By Beth Mechum
Staff Writer

There have been a rash of car break-ins in Carrboro in the past couple of weeks, but it’s nothing too out of the ordinary for this time of year.

Officer Walter Horton with the Carrboro Police Department said that with the summer coming to a close and students making a larger presence in town, the rate of car break-ins usually rises. But he hasn’t seen a spike in residential break-ins.

“Thefts have been going up, but I think it’s just the time of the year and the economy; people are just trying to get by,” Horton said.

In Chapel Hill, Lt. Kevin Gunter said that there hasn’t been an increase in car break-ins recently, but that there were about twice as many break-ins the first half of this year as there were in the same time period last year.

Horton offers advice to ward off thefts.

“Keep valuables out of sight and take everything you can in with you, whether it is the workplace or the home,” he said.

He said it’s also a good idea to write down serial numbers for all your electronics, so if they do get stolen it’ll be a lot easier to identify them if they show up in pawn shops.

Gunter added that parking in a well-lighted area is important.

“It’s not always possible, but if you can you should park in an area that’s not obscure and is well traveled,” Gunter said.

Also, though he said it sounds simple, just locking cars and keeping windows up is the best way to avoid break-ins. In many of the cases he’s seen, the cars have been unlocked.

Horton and Gunter concurred that there are no areas of town with higher rates of theft than others, so residents everywhere need to take the time to ensure their cars are locked and there are no valuables in sight.

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