Jacksonville Police are investigating two separate pairs of car burglaries that occurred on opposite sides of the city yesterday.
Authorities received their first call of a possible vehicle burglary in the 800 block of Beesley at around 11 a.m. in which the caller claimed that someone had removed several band instruments from his car. The instruments were subsequently recovered across the street.
Less than an hour later, Jacksonville Police received a similar call. At approximately 11:45 a.m., another caller in the 800 block of Beesley told police that someone had entered their pick-up truck and removed around $7 in loose change. Both vehicles in the 800 block of Beesley that were allegedly burglarized had been unlocked at the time of the incidents.
While Beesley is located on the northeast side of Jacksonville, two more alleged burglaries were reported on the other end of the city, within an hour of the Beesley incidents. Jacksonville Police took a call just before noon yesterday regarding an alleged vehicle break-in on Forest Park West, near the YMCA. While no items were reported stolen, the caller told police that someone had cut their rear, driver’s side tire and thrown a large rock through their rear, passenger side window.
One hour later, at around 1 p.m., a fourth call came in, again in reference to an alleged vehicle burglary, and again having occurred on Forest Park West. The second Forest Park incident did not involve any break-in or damage to the vehicle, however the caller did claim that someone had entered their open garage and unlocked vehicle and removed multiple items.
Jacksonville Police Chief Adam Mefford says the department believes it’s likely that the same suspect or suspects were involved in both alleged Beesley burglaries. However, Mefford believes a separate suspect, or group of suspects, could be responsible for both of the alleged burglaries on Forest Park West.
Mefford explains that police are investigating the pairs of burglaries as two unrelated incidents.
“With the distance between the two areas and the randomness of it, the police department right now is looking at these as two separate incidents and we’re investigating that way. At this time we don’t have any connection between the two and don’t believe they are related. We believe the incident on Beesley was probably related and the incident on Forest Park was probably related, but we don’t have any evidence to support that the two were related to each other. We’re calling the Beesley incident as one incident, and we’re calling the Forest Park incident as one incident,” says Mefford.
Mefford says both incidents remain under investigation, and that the department has yet to develop any leads on potential suspects.