Stanislaus sheriff a car burglary victim

The crime is far too common – a burglar smashes a car window, grabs what was inside and takes off.

It’s the victim that makes this case stand out from the roughly 900 other auto burglaries in Modesto so far this year: Stanislaus County Sheriff Adam Christianson.

Someone broke the window on the county-issued Dodge Charger, parked in the driveway of Christianson’s east Modesto home. Christianson said he awoke Thursday morning to find the mess – because a door wasn’t opened, the alarm on the car did not sound.

“Even the sheriff isn’t immune from being a crime victim,” Christianson said.

The only thing missing, besides the window, was the sheriff’s duty bag. It contained blank forms and a citation booklet, as well as some pens and pencils. The sheriff’s prescription sunglasses, which he left on top of the bag, are also missing, as is an old tape recorder he used to use to dictate reports.

“I never leave anything of value in the car,” Christianson said. “They can’t get the computer because it’s locked into a hard metal mount. Radios are hard-mounted.”

Weapons, he added, were securely locked away.

“They didn’t even take my change.”

Christianson can take some solace in the fact that auto burglaries in Modesto seem to be on the decline — the 932 cases reported through Tuesday represent an 18 percent drop over the same time period in 2013, according to Modesto Police spokeswoman Heather Graves.

With the busy holiday season and colder temperatures only a few weeks away, law enforcement agencies will issue their annual warnings against leaving anything of value in cars, or, worse, leaving a running car unattended. Thieves on the lookout for easy opportunities capitalize on situations like that.

In Christianson’s case, “I park that car in my driveway under a spotlight,” he said. “It goes to show that despite all of the deterrents that we put into protecting ourselves, I’m now the victim of a crime.”

Though the Charger isn’t a marked patrol car, it’s pretty obvious upon a closer look that it’s a law enforcement vehicle, with the radio, computer and other equipment.

“That’s pretty brazen,” Christianson said of the thief.

Outside of the sunglasses and the bag itself, the only item of any worth the suspect got away with was one of Christianson’s flashlights, which is engraved with his identification. He’ll be on the lookout for it, the sheriff said.

“If somebody gets found down the road with my flashlight, someone’s going to jail.”

This story was originally published October 30, 2014 at 2:47 PM with the headline "Stanislaus sheriff a car burglary victim."