NEW PORT RICHEY, Fla. — As the sun sets over Pasco County, the sheriff’s office has a warning: lock your car doors.
“The most common way we see auto burglaries happen is just by someone coming and pulling on those car doors and it’s unlocked,” said sheriff's office spokesperson Amanda Hunter. “They’ve got your stuff in about five seconds.”
The agency has a Facebook page filled with videos, showing often times teens going door to door looking for easy targets.
Ian Smith, who moved to Pasco County from Florida’s east coast, says it happened to him.
“They just opened up the car and started rummaging through everything, and took what they could,” recalls Smith from the time his own vehicle was broken into. “You feel violated. People just stealing your stuff or taking a little iPod which is what I think I had in there.”
Crime Tracker 10 has learned the sheriff’s office has reports on 722 car burglaries across Pasco County this year alone. Records show that’s up 26 percent since 2019.
The sheriff’s office points out the county’s growing population, but car burglaries remain one of the area’s most frequent and preventable crimes.
“If we don’t investigate an auto burglary or a stolen vehicle every day, it’s every week,” Hunter said.
And what may seem like a minor crime, often comes with a big price tag.
Local data suggests the average car burglary loss runs between $600 and $1000. We found similar numbers all across the Bay area with Pinellas, Polk and Hillsborough all averaging over 1,000 car burglaries a year.
In Hillsborough County alone, the agency calculated the losses at close to $4.4 million over the past three years.
Pasco County Sheriff Chris Nocco is fighting back, taking to social media reminding the public to lock up and remove their valuables every night.
“We’re asking you to commit to the 9pmRoutine,” says Nocco in a message posted to the agency’s social media accounts. “Lock your doors and don’t leave valuables, especially guns, in your car.”
The hashtag #9pmRoutine has gone viral with more than 100 other law enforcement agencies helping spread the word.
“It started out as a big social push for people to check in with us on social media once they completed it, so it kind of gave people some accountability. And then it just became a worldwide phenomenon, literally,” Hunter said.
She says while the push has been wildly effective at spreading the word on the importance of locking up, not everyone follows the advice.
“You come home, you’re tired, you say you’re gonna leave my laptop in the car… whatever it’ll be fine overnight," she said. "And that’s the moment when it’s not.”
The sheriff’s office says these crimes of opportunity often happen where you might least expect.
Hot zones across Pasco include gated communities and upscale apartment complexes, according to the sheriff’s office. They say criminals are attracted to areas where they feel they’ll have the best chance of finding cars filled with valuables.
“Keys, phones, wallets, guns, jewelry; those are all things that are the most commonly stolen out of vehicles so step one is to remove those items out of your car,” Hunter said.
But Smith says it’s easy for people to get distracted, especially with their busy lives.
“You get complacent, absolutely," he said. "You’re in a rush and you’re dealing with your families. Everybody here has got families, so they just kind of forget or they leave it open.”
Smith says he learned the hard way, but won’t make the same mistake again.
"You don’t want to be fooled twice, you know," he said. "Second time, shame on you. So, you’ve got to be vigilant about taking care of your property because there are bad people in the world.”
If you’d like to help remind others to lock up overnight, use the hashtag #9pmRoutine on Twitter. The Sheriff’s Office says they have people checking in from as far away as Brazil and the U.K.