Modesto police focus on theft targets, leave courtesy notices

“If I were a thief … you would now be a victim.”

It’s a startling warning to find printed on yellow paper and tucked under the windshield wiper of your car, but it’s better than finding no car at all.

The Modesto Police Department is behind the courtesy notices, an effort to combat vehicle burglaries and auto thefts along the Sisk Road corridor.

Police volunteers and explorers who’ve been issuing the notices over the past month primarily are hitting the area where rows upon rows of cars in commercial parking lots are ripe for the picking.

They are finding purses and packages, garage door openers, iPods and stereo faceplates, all in plain sight. Doors are left unlocked and windows down too far.

A cadet found a pickup with its windows rolled all the way down and the keys left dangling from the turn signal arm. The garage door opener was clipped to the visor and the owner’s address was easy to find on the registration in the glove compartment.

Modesto Police spokeswoman Heather Graves said there are an average of nine vehicle burglaries a week in northwest Modesto, but there have been 10 or more for the past three months in the Sisk Road area alone.

Those are just thefts committed by force and the number doesn’t include all the items stolen from cars that were left unsecured, in which case the crime would be classified as a petty theft.

Not only does the charge of vehicle burglary come with a heftier sentence, it’s also a higher priority for investigation.

All burglary cases go to property crimes detectives to follow up, but a petty theft, in which less than $950 in property is stolen, is investigated at the patrol level.

Graves said she investigated a vehicle burglary in which the window was cracked but the suspect managed to get his fingers inside to push it all the way down. His efforts left perfect fingerprints on the window.

If a victim leaves his or her car open, fingerprints on the door handle alone likely won’t be enough for “prosecution on a petty theft, and we probably would not use a patrol officer to investigate that when we are so short-staffed and we need them to investigate things that are happening now.”

Unless there’s more evidence to go on, a petty theft case will likely be suspended, she said.

Detectives do investigate grand theft, in which property exceeding $950 is stolen, as in the case of catalytic converters.

Cadets and volunteers also have been patrolling the parking lot of Kaiser Permanente Medical Center because of a rash of catalytic converter thefts there recently.

Graves said thieves can get about $60 for scrapping the parts, but it can cost the victim in excess of $2,000 to replace.

Graves recommends that people have a mechanic weld the catalytic converter onto their cars.

Valuables shouldn’t be left in cars or at least should be kept out of sight, but the most simple theft deterrent for your car and its belongings is to ensure it’s locked.

Last Sunday, police arrested a suspected car thief who got into an Acura Integra at the Clarion Hotel through an unlocked passenger door.

After a pursuit with an officer, the suspect ran from the car into a neighborhood southeast of West Rumble Road and College Avenue. He was found by a police dog hiding in a trash can in the 2600 block of Fremont Avenue.

The suspect admitted to committing at least five other auto thefts and took an officer to the locations where he’d dumped the cars, Graves said.

Another Acura Integra was found on Vera Cruz Drive and a Saturn was found in the 2400 block of Yosemite Avenue. Cars had already been recovered from three other locations.

The presence of the police explorers and volunteers is a good deterrent to auto thefts and break-ins, Graves said. She said the intent of the courtesy notices is to educate drivers so they can utilize the safeguards they learned when law enforcement isn’t around.

This story was originally published May 16, 2015 at 5:44 PM with the headline "Modesto police focus on theft targets, leave courtesy notices."