Unlocked Cars: 'Crime of Opportunity'

A woman who left her car unlocked briefly in a Tarrytown lot soon discovered that her purse had been stolen. The purse was later retrieved but without its valuable contents, police said.

A woman reported to Tarrytown police that she had parked her car the night prior, on March 22, in the South Washington parking lot off Main Street at about 10:40 p.m. She had left her car unlocked there for about 20 minutes. She got back into her car and drove up the road, this time parking near 7-Eleven. There she realized that someone had entered her car and stolen her purse.

The purse was later retrieved by a passerby on the street and brought to Tarrytown police headquarters.

When the woman came the next morning to pick up her purse, she tallied what was missing: gift cards, U.S. currency, iPod, Kindle, earphones, sunglasses. The total topped $1,000, making this a grand larceny case.

Tarrytown Lt. William Herguth said the amount of cases he sees involving people leaving their cars unlocked surprises him. “I don’t know why people don’t lock their cars; it doesn’t make sense to me.”

He recalled the recent rash of incidents where people walked around residential areas and opened car doors and trunks in the night, rifling through and stealing items.

Herguth said people often express concern to him that if they lock their cars they are more likely to get their windows broken. To this he said, “We find that that’s not the case. When we arrest these people, they say they just skip the locked cars. It’s a crime of opportunity.”

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