Police remind residents the best way to protect themselves from prowlers is to secure their property.
This comes after a rash of prowlings in a Nacmine neighbourhood last week. Corporal Gerald Sherk tells the Mail there were about five reports last Monday evening.
“We are quite sure there were more than that as far as vehicles that were gone through, it is just that you don’t know unless something is actually missing or if they left a mess behind them that you would know someone was in that vehicle,” said Sherk.
In these instances, the cars were left open.
“The right thing to do is keep your vehicle locked, keep valuables out of sight, don’t keep valuable things in your car if you don’t need to, then there is no reason or someone to go into your vehicle.
He says these are crimes of opportunity.
“This was common at my former posting in Whitehorse, almost a nightly occurrence. It is usually one person or a small group of opportunistic thieves. If there is a reason to go into your vehicle like open change, and your vehicle is unlocked, there is no real prevention to stopping them.”
“It is not often they will actually break into a vehicle unless it is actually worth the risk of being caught. Once they start smashing things it attracts attention.”
On top of securing your property, he says it is also important to let the police know, even if it was minor and very little property has been taken.
“There are times a neighbour down the street may have good surveillance and we are able to identify someone and move ahead with a charge, but we won’t know if you haven’t reported it to us we won’t know you are also a victim. If there is any loss from you, we won’t know where to return items that are not specifically unique.”