Police: Burglar Hit More Than Two Dozen Cars In Two Days
MIAMI (CBS4) - A car burglar is swept through a Little Havana neighborhood burglarizing nearly three dozen cars and residents fear what more he may do.
"He may have hurt himself maybe with glass or just ransacking inside the vehicles," said Kenia Reyes, Spokesperson for Miami Dade Police Department. "His M.O. is breaking into the vehicle by the window."
Police believe the thief is responsible for breaking into 34 cars, in just two days at four different apartment buildings in and around Little Havana. 8 of the burglaries were reported on Monday morning and 26 were reported Early Tuesday morning at buildings equip with surveillance cameras and signs that read "No Trespassing."
"Indeed surveillance video caught him in the act, caught him committing the crime itself," said Reyes.
The video pulled from Monday's break-ins at 1145 SW 6th street, and Tuesday's crimes at 624 SW 1st street captured a slim young man, possibly in his early 20s, casually leaping over walls and breaking the windows of parked cars.
Of those affected by the burglaries is Little Havana resident Mariana Bertoucchi, "My car…my husband's car," said Bertoucchi, as she told CBS4's Gwen Belton that the burglaries will set her back roughly $250 to replace the windows in both her car and her husband's car.
Shattered glass littered the parking lot of the apartment building next to Bertoucchi's home where seven cars were broken into. Around the corner another building Jairo Velazquez says he was hit too and woke up finding his car window smashed and his car burglarized.
"My phone, my wallet and a little bag," exclaimed Velazquez has he recalled the items that were stolen from his car.
While the victims are concerned with the break-ins, they are even more worried about the fact the thief is out still out there and might be bold enough to come back.
"I work at night so if I come at one or two in the morning I do not know what is going to happen," said Bertoucchi.
Authorities are still on the look-out for this man and encourage anyone with any information to call the City of Miami Police Department's Burglary Unit at (305)603-6030 or Miami-Dade Crime Stoppers at (305)471- TIPS (8477).
