Daviess County Sheriff’s Office Investigating Wave of Thefts from Unlocked Vehicles

It takes far less than a second to do something that will go a long distance toward protecting yourself.

It's called "locking your vehicle."

NO TOWN IS TOO SMALL

It doesn't make any difference how long I'm in a store, for example, I always lock my car. I know there are those who assign a sort of quaint "personality" to a city or town that wouldn't qualify as a major metropolitan area. And that, in turn, leads them to believe they're perfectly secure in not locking up. But that's where you get into trouble.

And, frankly, Owensboro and Daviess County simply are NOT small enough, in my opinion, to assume that we're okay leaving our vehicles unlocked while they are sitting in front of our homes or in the driveway. And if they ARE parked in the street, vehicles really are way more susceptible to the kind of thing that's been happening at an alarming rate in Daviess County over the last few days.

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THEFTS IN DAVIESS COUNTY, KENTUCKY

I spoke with Major Smith from the Daviess County Sheriff's Office earlier today and he told me that they are investigating a series of thefts from unlocked vehicles all over the county. I told him that I'd seen Facebook posts indicating that it was mainly an issue on the east side of the county, but he said that is not the case.

Smith said that these incidents began late last week and have ramped up over the last four days and that vehicles parked in subdivisions have been the primary target. He says the perpetrators, in a large majority of cases, are not BREAKING INTO vehicles; they're checking for those that are unlocked and then taking whatever they deem valuable.

He says they're seeking out subdivisions so they walk from house to house. Smith also gave me some specific locations of interest, saying there have been several occurrences of theft from vehicles on Jack Hinton Road and Eastwood Drive, with single thefts reported on Wayne Bridge Road and Pleasant Valley Road--on opposite sides of the county.

Well, just today, Smith told me, they're looking into such incidents on Boothfield Road and Bon Harbor Cove.

ANTI-THEFT EASY FIX

Bottom line--and he was adamant about this, and why not--LOCK YOUR VEHICLES, no matter where they are parked and regardless of how long they're going to be parked there.

When I was a student at WKU, a friend of mine got off work at the airport and stopped by a convenience store to pick up a pack of cigarettes. He parked his truck right in front of the door, left it running AND unlocked, and returned to find it missing. And he'd been inside MAYBE a minute.

It just doesn't take that long for a determined individual to steal something from you if you make it easy on them.

So don't make it easy on them.

LOCK UP.

Over and out.