UPDATE: A number of stolen or burglarized vehicles

By Gary Scott on July 28, 2017 at 7:49am

As many as five vehicles were stolen and 18 others were burglarized overnight in Jacksonville between Wednesday and Thursday, according to reports from local police.

Along with the Blue Jeep Cherokee that was reported stolen from the 700 block of Railroad, there was also an unlocked truck stolen from Appomattox. Other vehicles stolen include a 2010 Ford Taurus taken from Queens Lane, a 2011 Chevrolet Equinox from Galena Drive and another vehicle from the 300 block of East Superior. The truck taken from Appomattox was subsequently recovered in the 800 block of North West Street.

There were also a substantial number of reports pertaining to burglarized vehicles or trespassing to vehicles.

Jacksonville Police Lieutenant Sean Walker says that they the incidents occurred in different parts of the city, and that police are looking at each case separately, for now.

“As of right now, we’re going to treat each one individually. Obviously they all happened in the same night, so we’re going to assume that some of them had to be committed by the same persons. But, they were in three separate areas of town. Whether this was the same person or groups of people, or three separate groups of people, we don’t know yet,” says Walker.

Walker also says that there is a trend with these vehicle burglaries.

“They’re looking for unlocked vehicles, that’s the pattern. They’re just checking vehicles, if a door is unlocked they’re going to enter the vehicle and search for whatever valuables they can find. Some of the vehicles, the keys are being left in them, they are taking those vehicles. But all of them, the doors are left unlocked. When we’re doing these area checks, we’ll find a couple vehicles that have been broken into, and surrounded by those vehicles will be four or five vehicles that are locked, and those will be completely untouched,” Walker explains.

All of the incidents appear to have taken place overnight between Wednesday and Thursday. Police are reminding local residents to keep their vehicles locked overnight.