CBS4 Exclusive: Ring camera video shows car burglars moments before being busted in El Portal
MIAMI - New Ring camera video obtained exclusively by CBS4 shows car burglars who were busted moments after an alert homeowner called police.
There's been a nationwide increase in this crime and often suspects get away but in this case, they did not.
El Portal Police Chief Alex Mendez credits the homeowner who was victimized with calling 911 immediately after he was alerted by his ring cam that a crime was in progress.
Mendez told CBS4's Peter D'Oench "What's great is the resident did not hesitate to call 911.
You can see them on the videotape as they approach the driveway of a private residence.
The light goes off and that scares them and alerts them that the resident can see what they are doing."
El Portal is a small village and its police headquarters is near the home on N.E. 5th Ave.
Officers responded quickly when they were alerted just before 7:30 last Saturday night.
Mendez said 19-year-old Enrique Morales and a 15-year-old accomplice were arrested and charged with attempted burglary.
He said two other juveniles who were with them were initially taken into custody as well but they have not been charged in this case.
A police report said they "were not observed on the victims' CCTV during the burglary attempt nor were they seen by the victim.
Therefore it is unknown if they had any involvement with the burglary attempt."
The report also said, "The defendant and co-defendant were asked what their intentions were of entering the vehicle and admitted that they were checking to see if it was open to enter the vehicle and take anything of value.
Due to the lights coming on, they got scared and ran off."
The victim who just wanted to use his first name of Daleik said, "As soon as my cameras went off, I wanted to see what was going on so I made the call to police. I just wanted to reach out to law enforcement as soon as possible. I am so happy that people were able to apprehend the suspects. It is something we have been dealing with for a while with people breaking into vehicles."
Neighbors including Valeria Rodriguez said they were grateful the suspects were caught.
"I am frankly really glad they did that," she said.
"It is one of the fears that I have is that my car is unlocked and someone steals something out of my car. I am glad that whoever had this idea to do this is behind bars."
Rodriguez said she always keeps her car doors locked.
"You always hear so many horror stories about people stealing stuff out of cars and it is something I worry about so I always keep my car doors locked," she said.
Mendez said it is not known if the suspects have victimized people in other cities.
He said it is not always easy to apprehend suspects in these cases.
"It's a crime of opportunity," he said. "It's dark while they are trying car doors and for the most part they are young so nobody pays attention to them. What's good is we work hand in hand with residents who have learned to keep their car doors unlocked under these circumstances."
He said, "We always tell people to leave their car doors locked and don't leave anything visible that is of value even if it is your change. You could end up losing an expensive pair of eyeglasses or a car phone or even worse, they could steal a firearm."
The possible theft of weapons from vehicles is a concern that has been raised by other Police Chiefs from around South Florida as we have seen in a number of previous reports on CBS4.
Police chiefs in cities including South Miami and West Miami have pro-actively alerted the public in the past about "Car hoppers" who are known to descend on neighborhoods in the middle of the night in small groups and check door handles of vehicles to see if they are unlocked so they can open them and steal spare change and valuable items.