Break-ins continue to be a problem in Merritt.
Between Nov. 16 and 19 about seven break-ins to motor vehicles were reported to police.
RCMP Const. Tracy Dunsmore said multiple vehicles parked on Douglas Street appeared to have been broken into last Thursday (Nov. 16), while the soft top of a vehicle parked on Coldwater Avenue was cut open and fishing gear stolen from it on Friday.
The day after that, police received word that two motorhomes on Wilcox Avenue were broken into and on Sunday (Nov. 19) items were taken from a vehicle parked behind the Save-On-Foods downtown, she said.
Personal items were stolen from a vehicle parked up Midday Valley Road over the weekend as well.
“Somebody had gone out hunting … and when they came back the vehicle had been broken into and a backpack was stolen,” said Dunsmore.
One common thread between many of these files is that items in the vehicles were left in plain sight, Dunsmore told the Herald.
“If you leave wallets, sunglasses, backpacks — anything like that — that’s what they’re looking for and if nobody’s around they will break a window to get into the vehicle,” said Dunsmore.
She advises people keep the doors to their vehicles locked and leave items out of sight or out of the vehicle altogether.
Dunsmore said thieves appear to be getting more brazen as well.
“Usually they don’t break the windows. We haven’t had a lot of that [in the past] but it seems like that’s increasing,” said Dunsmore.
Break-ins to vehicles have been on the rise in Merritt, with police accumulating 36 files from July through October 2017 compared with 17 files over the same four month period last year.
