Several households in a Chapel Hill neighborhood experienced break-ins to their vehicles earlier this week, according to the police department.

At least five reports were filed to Chapel Hill Police between the night of Monday August 17 and Tuesday August 18, saying 14 vehicles had been broken into. All of the reports were filed from residents on Coolidge Street, Dawes Street and Monroe Street, a neighborhood off South Columbia Street.

This follows another group of reported vehicle break-ins at an East Franklin Street duplex last week, where residents saw more than $1,000 of items stolen. Prior to that incident, residents in the Estes Hills neighborhood also experienced several break-ins.

Town of Chapel Hill interim communications manager Ran Northam spoke with Chapelboro about these criminal activities being reported. He said the cases add to a particularly busy month for the police department.

“Our crime analyst went back and looked,” Northam said, “there have actually been 70 reports since August 1. We’re seeing quite a few vehicles that are being taken advantage of in a short period of time.”

Some of the victims of these break-ins have been UNC students, who may have returned to the town in preparation for the start of the fall semester. Northam says this is a pattern the police department has seen in the past, but students are not specifically targeted.

Despite the university moving to an exclusively remote semester on Wednesday, Northam said that doesn’t mean the town’s density or the likelihood of more break-ins will go down. He speculated it may even exacerbate the issue since people might not use or check their vehicles as often.

“People are in there cars fewer times, people are visiting their cars fewer times [per day,]” said Northam, “so they’re left alone for longer periods of time. Remote work might actually hurt this situation, unfortunately, as people are encouraged to stay inside more and not be in the vehicles more often.”

Northam said the best advice Chapel Hill residents can follow is to leave vehicles in sight, keep them locked and to not keep valuables in plain view.

“I’m not perfect at that, I know there are often many times were I forget to do it too,” he said. “But it’s an easy step that would really help many of these cases.”

Photo via the Town of Chapel Hill.

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