SARASOTA, Fla. — Some local law enforcement agencies say they have seen an uptick in car burglaries and guns getting stolen in the process.
Sarasota police recently released data on forced and unforced car break-ins. They showed that 90 percent of car burglaries involved unlocked cars.
Police said criminals are going around parking lots and neighborhoods randomly canvassing and trying to open car doors to see if they are unlocked. They were concerned that car owners are not only leaving valuables inside their cars but had made it easier for thieves to get inside.
"You caught me red-handed and being very irresponsible," Nick Bala of Sarasota said.
Bala had left both windows of his car fully rolled down with his belongings in full view in the back seat.
He has lived in Sarasota for five years and said he feels very safe in the city but also had a reasonable excuse as to why his windows were down.
"This windshield is down, I mean it's broken, I need a new one and this one, I just left it down," Bala said.
A spokesperson for Sarasota Police Department said that along with car windows widely cracked or all the way down, car owners are just leaving their car doors unlocked for criminals to waltz in and out freely and ransack their cars.
So far this year, between January 1 and April 17, there have been 106 car burglaries recorded in the city of Sarasota. During the same time frame in 2022, there were 95 car burglaries, and 79 percent or 75 cars were unsecured.
"Whether they live here or just visiting or just passing through you know," this Sarasota Police Department's public information officer said. "This is a crime opportunity and people will just run up to cars, walk up to cars, pull on door handles, are able to get in then they'll go ahead and rummage through and then they can move on the next."
The criminals are taking valuables and hard-to-replace possessions.
"Stealing your debit cards and your ID, going online buying a whole bunch of weird stuff, so they have all your personal information too," Bala said.
Of utmost concern to law enforcement is the amount of guns being left in unlocked vehicles which the criminals are able to steal.
According to numbers from several jurisdictions in the Tampa Bay area, several dozen guns have been stolen from unclocked vehicles so far this year.
There were 10 guns reported stolen from vehicles in Sarasota, eight in Bradenton, and 35 in St. Petersburg.
"They could end up in the hands of criminals, they could be pawned for money and people could lose their property," Judge said. "It's hard to say where they end up but it is alarming that firearms that don't belong to somebody, they are stolen out of vehicles and getting into the hands of somebody they don't belong to."
In Sarasota County, there were a total of 250 car burglaries including 22 guns mostly from unlocked cars too
"We have been reiterating for months that car burglaries are happening quite frequently, and citizens need to make sure they do not leave valuables of any type in their vehicles, guns included, and always lock the vehicle," Dana Judge with the Sarasota County Sheriff's Office said.
"Always lock your car. Whether you are running into the store, or you're running in your house or in the garage,"Genevieve Judge added. "It's just a good idea to just push the lockdown. Push the key fob and just take the two seconds to lock your car so hopefully, crimes like these can be prevented."
"Hit that button on your keys when you walk away from your car and make sure to go back to do a double take," Bala said.
According to Sarasota police, of the six firearms stolen between Jan. 1 and April 17 of 2022, only two were recovered. While only just one of the 10 guns stolen so far this year has been recovered.
Meanwhile, in the city of Tampa, the latest data from 2022 showed a total of 1,861 vehicles burglarized. Officials with the city said of those total vehicles burglarized, 1,434 of them were left unlocked.
A total of 243 firearms were stolen from the vehicles and 198 of those firearms were kept in vehicles that were unlocked. 82% of the firearms stolen from vehicles were linked to a vehicle that was left unlocked.
Some Tampa Bay-area cities don't have a separate category for guns stolen from unlocked cars, but officials say they're seeing the trend and urge folks to be more responsible.