BALCONES HEIGHTS, Texas – Balcones Heights police are closely monitoring shopping centers, restaurants and hotels in their city, as areas near highways are often targeted by thieves, especially during the holidays.
Cpl. Christopher Aguirre said the officers’ patrols are working. There was a decline in car break-ins in recent months, but with the holidays, that trend might shift.
“To be honest, it is extremely easy, quick, efficient to get into these vehicles,” he said. “Time frame wise, we’ve seen a minute and a half in and out of the vehicle and gone. That’s time from when they pull into the parking lot to the time they’re leaving the parking lot.”
Thieves often strike vehicles with valuables in plain sight. However, they seem to have targets.
“Specifically, what we see that they’re looking for are firearms. They like to target large trucks, the F-150, the Silverados, Tundras,” Aguirre said. “We see it pretty frequently that they break into a vehicle, they leave other valuable merchandise, but they take the firearm. So we know that’s what they’re looking for.”
A study by Everytown Research showed San Antonio ranked fifth in the nation for gun thefts from cars in 2022.
“They’re hitting big locations where people are spending lots of time in,” Aguirre said. “The one thing I didn’t realize until I started doing this line of work was how they like to travel up the corridor of the highway system. And as you probably know, San Antonio has a lot of highway systems, so it’s really easy to travel up these highways to get anywhere around town.”
The San Antonio Police Crime Data map shows car break-ins across the city. It allows users to see crime trends affecting nearby shopping centers. Click here to explore the map.
