With the end of the year still a month a half away, Austin has already seen more car burglaries this year than in all of 2008.
Car burglaries are up more than 21 percent, from 11,888 from January to October 2008, to 14,447 in that same period in 2009.
That's why police officers were out Thursday trying to think like thieves, walking through parking lots in apartment complexes and shopping centers, looking for valuables in cars left in plain sight.
"I'm looking for anything that's in the vehicle -- anything that's going to entice a criminal to break into the car," said Billy Simoneaux, a senior police officer with the Austin Police Department.
He and other officers left warning tickets on cars to alert drivers to the dangers of leaving valuables where they could be easily seen by drivers.
"If you leave that within plain sight and you're broken into, you have two people to blame: the guy who took your valuables and yourself for leaving the valuables within your vehicle," he said.
Linda Lollis got one of the warning tickets while shopping at a Target in Northwest Austin.
"I think it's a good idea," she said. "It makes people more aware of what's going on around them."
Al Dineen didn't get a warning ticket, but he knows the pain of a car burglary. His car was broken into in an apartment complex parking lot five years ago.
"They took a screwdriver and jimmied open the side of the window, which ended up breaking the window and reached in and pulled out my stereo and took that,'' he said. "It's a huge inconvenience, because your car is not secure anymore."
"I think when something like that happens to you, it's a form of a violation, and I think you remember that."
