Car prowls on the rise in Wallingford?

A resident of the area around N. 39th and Densmore alerted us early this week to a sudden increase in car prowls in that part of Wallingford:

In the past few nights, someone has been going up and down our block going through cars. So far, nothing of value has been gone missing. But someone is rummaging through unlocked vehicles, usually emptying the contents of glove compartments.

Another neighbor noticed that the seal around their car windows had been tampered with, as if someone had been trying to get in with a coat hanger or similar object.

Again, this has been in the past few nights, between Sat. and [Monday].

In a followup email he added more information, after we asked if he’d reported the incident to the Seattle Police Department:

My girlfriend alerted the police. Not sure of the other neighbors. But our block captain passed the info on to her precinct contact. I believe in every case on our block, the cars were unlocked. As a rule I don’t leave anything in my car I don’t want to lose. Glad no one has lost anything, but a good reminder to lock our doors!

We checked in with Officer Loren Street, who’s Wallingford’s Community Police Team member, to get some advice about car prowls. We mentioned that the My Wallingford auto had been rifled through a couple of weeks ago (it was unlocked), but we didn’t let the police know because nothing was stolen. Street said to call the police, even if nothing of value is gone from the car:

It is very helpful to us when trying to determine crime trends that all crimes get reported.  One of the most common MO’s of car prowlers is to walk down the street randomly checking door handles to see if the cars are open.  More and more people are leaving their cars unlocked these days and removing the valuables just so their windows won’t get broken out when a prowler hits.  A good beat officer will recognize the amount of reports that have been made in certain areas and adjust his/her patrol patterns.  They might be a little more suspicious of people walking around a certain neighborhood if they know there is a problems there.

The best way to report a crime that is not an emergency is to call the non-emergency line at 625-5011.  You will get a phone tree that is very confusing to say the least but if you select option #2 and then option #8 you will be forwarded to a secondary operator to report you crime.  Just to state the obvious here, any criminal or suspicious activity that has a suspect on scene should be considered an emergency and 911 should be called.  So if you look out the window and someone is walking up the street checking door handles or something along those lines 911 would definitely be appropriate.

Street said he hadn’t seen a spike in recent car prowl reports, but that he’d check with the crime prevention expert to see if she had any different information.