Cape Girardeau Police Department received 17 stolen vehicle reports in 30 days
CAPE GIRARDEAU, Mo. (KBSI) – The Cape Girardeau Police Department is telling the public to lock their vehicles as they say they have seen a rise in vehicle thefts in the past month.
According to Public Information’s Officer Bobby Newton, they’ve received 17 different stolen vehicle reports in Cape Girardeau in the last 30 days.
“We have made several arrests off of those and recovered several of the vehicles, but we want to remind everybody to make sure you’re locking your vehicles taking the valuables out and also if you have a spare key make sure you aren’t leaving that in the vehicle as well,” said Newton.
He says it is important to take anything variable out of your vehicle at the end of the day and always lock up your vehicle doors and remove any items such as cell phones or guns.
“Many of these vehicles had firearms in them as well when they were stolen. So again, that’s a valuable item that you want to make sure you have out of your vehicle when you lock it up for the day.”
Newton says he is unsure why Cape Girardeau is seeing an increase in car thefts right now. Some other areas have seen a major increase in car thefts due to social media trends through TikTok and other websites. Videos have circulated on social media sharing which vehicles are easier to break into.
Newton says he doesn’t believe this is the cause for the area at this particular time, but he encourages everyone to take extra precautions in making your vehicle harder to steal and write down serial numbers for expensive items…specifically, items left in your vehicle like a cellphone or gun.
“So that way if it is ever stolen, laptop, phone, whatever it may be we can enter those serial numbers in our database and if it pops up in say California we’re going to be alerted that it’s there, so we’ve solved a lot of cases that way as well.”
Cape Girardeau Police Department encourages anyone with any information on vehicle thefts to contact them and report it.
