A large group of stealthy burglars were caught on home security cameras wandering through a California neighborhood breaking into cars in the middle of the night.
On July 6, an Antioch, California resident claimed to have woken up to approximately 10 people, most wearing hoodies, walking down his street and entering some of the cars, including his girlfriend’s.
“When I seen them, I didn’t know what was happening, I was like ‘I hope they don’t try going through the garage,’ I wasn’t about to go out there myself, there was about 10 of them,” Mike Allen told Kron 4.
While it is unknown what exactly was stolen from any of the vehicles, Allen told the outlet his girlfriend had left a bag in the car.
“They broke into my girlfriend’s car because she had her baby bag in the car, so they went in there rummaging through everything and got what they wanted and walked down the street and the following morning I could see about three other cars down the street that they did the same thing,” Allen added.
Antioch is located 45 miles Northeast of San Francisco.
While car break-ins aren’t uncommon in the Contra Costa County city, officials say large groups aren’t a normal occurrence.
“It is unusual that many people, a large group, would go around and be looking into the cars and walking the neighborhood,” Sgt. Price Kendall of the Antioch Police Department told Kron 4. “This happens frequently but usually, it’s one or two people and there’s a car associated, on this evening it was a large group of people that were wandering the neighborhood.”
Allen’s garage door camera captured three burglars rummaging their way through a Honda parked outside his house, which Kendall believes was most likely left unlocked.
Police describe the car break-ins as “crimes of opportunity,” as there were no specific vehicles targeted.
“Through one of the videos, you can clearly see they were able to walk up to the car, the car was more than likely unlocked, officers arrived on scene approximately five minutes after the call came in, at that time the group had dispersed, they weren’t able to locate anyone on scene,” Kendall added.
The Country Hills neighborhood where the burglaries took place is made of mostly midsized homes with a median sale price of $651,000, according to Neighborhoods.com.
“It’s a pretty quiet neighborhood, nothing really happens out here, you don’t think that gruesome madness would happen out here, but I guess it could happen anywhere,” Allen said.
Last month author Shelby Steele and his son Eli had $30,000 worth of camera gear stolen from their car parked on the famed Lombard Street in San Francisco.
Burglaries aren’t the only thing terrorizing the Bay Area, as large “Fast & Furious” “sideshows” that block roads and feature guns and street donuts have become a regular occurrence in Oakland.
