KIRBY, Texas – A small city is cracking down on a big problem. In just two months, Kirby police have recorded nearly as many vehicle burglaries as they’ve seen in entire years past.
Detectives took KSAT with them for part of a new operation. The goal is to catch the criminals and put a big dent in the rates of crimes.
“We'll move around and watch for activity, call for patrol to assist if we need it, and we go from there. So it works out real well," a Kirby detective said as he flipped the lights out inside the car.
He's one of several Kirby officers out in the dark with eyes peeled, looking for something very specific.
"People were just entering the vehicles, roaming through them for pocket change, cellphones, wallets, we did have one firearm, a handgun that somebody had left in their vehicle and that got stolen," said Kirby Police Chief Kevin Bois.
Bois usually tallies up an average of 45 vehicle burglaries per year. In just the past two months, there have been 37.
The burglaries have been contained to the southwest part of Kirby, specifically inside a certain mobile home park and the neighborhoods right around it.
Bois immediately set up proactive undercover operations and joined his detectives at night.
"We started looking at patterns of people moving around, started talking to folks out on the street, traffic stops, and see if we could just build a suspect," he said.
Part of the operation is sharing most steps with the community on social media. Bois said the transparent tactic has been a huge help.
"We've been able to develop some leads. We're getting tips from the citizens now that they know what's going on, and a lot of that we can attribute back to Facebook," he said.
All officers involved in the operation are working overtime, but plan to continue doing so until the culprit is caught.
"Since we've started the program, it's dropped off dramatically," the detective said while driving around town.
"So we're going to keep that up as aggressively as we can for as long as we can," Chief Bois said.
Anyone with information about who might be responsible for these crimes, can send a tip in a few ways:
- Send an email to questions@kirbypd.org
- Call them at 210-661-8515
--------------------------------------------------------
Don't miss a thing. Get email alerts from KSAT 12 today.
Get alerted to news events as they happen or sign up for a scheduled news headline email that is delivered right to your inbox. Breaking news, severe weather, daily forecasts, entertainment news, all of the day’s important events to keep you up to date wherever you are.
Sign up today. It's Free.