Crime & Safety
Summertime Car Burglaries Prompt Police Warning
Geneva Police are reminding residents to lock their cars and take out valuables following a summertime rash of car burglaries.
Police are asking Geneva residents to be a little more careful about locking their cars and removing valuables that might tempt burglars.
The items that seem most attractive are electronics, particularly GPS devices that residents sometimes leave in plain view.
The most recent car burglary on the police blotter took place sometime between 11 p.m. Aug. 15 and 9 a.m. Aug. 16. The burglar or burglars took a laptop computer, Ipod Nano, MP3 player, a pair of sunglasses and a pair of shoes from a GMC Envoy parked in the 100 block of North Fifth Street. The items are valued at $1,250.
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In this case, the burglar did force entry by peeling away the rubber stripping around the driver's side door in order to gain access to the power locks, police said.
But in the majority of other car burglaries of late, the burglars didn't have to do anything except open the door.
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Earlier this summer, four teenagers were arrested by Batavia police for car burglaries in Batavia and Geneva, one of whom was charged as an adult.
Christopher Rogers, 17, of Batavia was charged with burglarizing 11 vehicles between June 26 and July 25 on Batavia's southeast side. Rogers was later charged with burglarizing seven vehicles in the Eagle Book subdivision in Geneva.
The arrest does not mean residents should stop being concerned about car burglaries, Geneva police Cmdr. Eric Passarelli said.
A second rash of July burglaries, in the Fisher Farms neighborhood in Geneva, remains under investigation, Passarelli said.
The number of burglaries to unlocked vehicles prompted the Geneva Police Department to issue a crime prevention advisory on Aug. 13. The release said burglars are "particularly targeting GPS systems."
In both groups of Geneva-neighborhood car burglaries, "the vehicles were all unlocked," Passarelli said. The advisory offers common-sense prevention tips: Close your garage doors at night, lock your car doors and don't just hide your GPS or any valuable item on the floor of the vehicle.
"We recommend they come out," he said. "These are definitely crimes of opportunity, so don't provide the opportunity."
