WEST LINN, Ore. -- Car prowlers hit a West Linn neighborhood hard Sunday night, according to police, breaking into 14 vehicles and stealing iPods, purses, sunglasses, credit cards, GPS and other private property.
Many of the cars were unlocked. A handful of locked ones were entered forcibly by breaking out windows, according to West Linn Police Sgt. Neil Hennelly.
"Look at this mess they made. Look at this." Suzy Hadeed had her car burglarized just a couple of weeks ago in Eugene. Now as she cleans up the mess in her SUV, she finds she's been hit in her own driveway. "You know as far as I know it was locked," says Hadeed.
In the middle of the night, sometime between midnight and 4:00am according to police, burglars hit cars all over West Linn. They hit Suzy's suv and her husband's car too. Most break-ins occurred in affluent neighborhoods along from Pimlico drive to the Cascade Terrace area, Hennelly said, and thieves head to West Linn because it’s a "target-rich environment."
The Hadeed's owned just two of fifteen cars broken into. Ricki Clifton owned two more.
"They took my son's iPod and my garage door opener," explains Clifton. Even on her busy street, right next to a stop sign, the thieves didn't hesitate to strike Clifton's unlocked targets. Victimized once, she's now worried her garage door opener will serve as an invite for the crooks to return. "We had to lock both garage doors to make sure they don't come back," says Clifton.
The car prowls were scattered all across the hilltop city. A cluster to north with one just south and more on the way toward Interstate 205. From there, Sgt. Neil Hennelly of the West Linn Police Department believes the crooks likely hopped on the freeway. Two thirds of all West Linn arrests are of people who don't live there.
"It's a target rich environment. They know there's lots of good expensive stuff and folks that get lulled into a sense of security and forget to take some really basic precaution," says Hennelly.
Over the last couple of weeks, West Linn P.D. has seen a spike in car prowls. The break ins have left car owners like Suzy and Ricki to clean up the mess. But, fifteen in one night is record breaking.
"Lock the car and take valuables inside" Sgt. Hennelly warned. "These are crimes of opportunity. If you remove the valuables, you remove the risk. Two-thirds of the people we arrest do not live in our community," he added.
Anyone else victimized by car prowlers was asked to contact police. Anyone with information on the break-ins was also asked to contact West Linn PD at (503) 635-0238.
