Miami Beach neighborhood struck by string of car thefts
MIAMI BEACH — A neighborhood in Miami Beach has been beset by a string of car thefts that are currently being investigated by police.
One family said their thief was bold enough to walk into their home to take their keys. There are at least four car thefts that they know of in the last month around Polo Park.
Police on Tuesday told CBS News Miami, however, that the number of car thefts in Miami Beach has decreased over the last six months.
On Tuesday afternoon, when it was still light out, David Silverman says someone walked into his home while his wife was upstairs.
"The dog was going crazy, but my wife didn't really come down because the dog sometimes barks pretty much anything," she said.
Butters, the family's dog, was right to bark this time. Silverman said the intruder took the keys from the front table and drove off with their Range Rover.
"You do feel violated, for sure," he said, "but hopefully, this is going to help other people to take some precautions that they're maybe not taking. You think like, 'Oh, my keys are hanging on a rack somewhere, and no one's gonna come in my house when I have a dog, or it's broad daylight', they don't care."
The Silvermans filed a report with Miami Beach Police, but the car has not been located.
"It's a quiet neighborhood," he said. "People look out for each other's houses. There's Ring cameras on most doors. They just don't care."
Peter Hamilton lives a few blocks down from Silverman.
"My wife woke me up and said, 'Where's your car?' And I said, 'It's in the driveway. And she says, "No, it's not,"'" Hamilton said.
On Thursday evening, his Ring camera caught two people wearing Joker masks and gloves getting dropped off by a BMW and then hopping into his BMW.
"The other one comes in and sits in the passenger seat, and the reason for that I found out was the person in the passenger seat was the individual that ripped out the mobile tracking," he said.
Hamilton said Miami Gardens Police recovered their car in a parking lot, but no arrests have been made.
"These guys are gonna keep going and stealing more cars, and they're probably not going to get caught," Moe Hamilton said.
In the same neighborhood, a third Ring camera caught an unmasked man hopping into a Jeep. It appears he spends time hotwiring the car. This family did not want to go on camera, but they said the police did recover their car and a man did get caught.
We reached out to Miami Beach Police to see if they were seeing an increase in car thefts.
They said they would get back to CBS Miami on Monday.