(ABC 6 News) — According to APD, the case of car prowling and thefts in Austin from Sunday evening remains under investigation.

APD Chief David McKichan told ABC 6 News that two juvenile suspects were identified the night of the thefts and vehicle tampering.

Some items were recovered that APD could tie to the suspects.

Chief McKichan also offered the following tips for things to watch out for and how to prevent car thefts in the future:

• These folks will pull doors and look for those that are open. They will shut the doors either quietly or not completely (light goes off only). They can cover a lot of ground (and cars) quickly. 

• When we come upon them, we need to try and tie them to the prowlings/thefts. This can be difficult due to many of the items being non-descript or common. 

• Video helps as it can match them to entering a car without permission, as this is a separate crime (609.546) from theft (609.52).

• In the middle of the night, most people do not know their cars have been entered. When we walk areas looking for such vehicles, we look for those partially closed doors as well as open gloves boxes/center consoles with items strewn around. 

• Most of the time the thieves are looking for coins and cash. Those are difficult to tie back to any one car. They may occasionally take some other things that they might find valuable, but often sort them and discard them as they walk. For instance, they might take a backpack, walk off with it, search it, keep any money, and then toss everything else. Hence why you might see things scattered randomly. 

• We do have the challenge of needing to show a particular person entered a car without permission (tampering) and took something specific from that car (theft). So, if we catch them on one block, even though we see evidence of cars having been gone through a few blocks over, we still have to tie them to those as well, and that is a challenge as I said. 

• Often victims might see their cars were gone through but not be able to tell what is missing. We all have misc. item in our cars that we forget we even had there, so we don’t notice them gone. I pulled a pair of sunglasses out of one of my cars yesterday that had been in there for years for instance, and while a nice pair, if you had shown them to me and asked if they came from my car, I might not have been able to confirm/recognize that. 

• Since some will not be able to recognize anything missing, it is often a crime type that is under-reported. Meaning they can tell their car was entered and items moved/looked through but since they do not perceive anything missing (or perhaps nothing of great value) they do not make a report. Again, like my sunglasses example, if someone had entered and taken them, I would have known it and since I had forgotten about them, I might never have realized it. 

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(ABC 6 News) — The Austin Police Department (APD) said that they are investigating a possible string of thefts that occurred Sunday evening in the northeastern portion of the city. 

According to APD Chief David McKichan, “Our agency is aware of car prowling and thefts from vehicles that occurred overnight. Our afternoon shift and night shift worked on these cases for several hours last night. That included walking up and down the streets and avenues from Oakland Place NE to 21st ST NE and 7th Ave to 1st Ave NE.” 

“My dog started going crazy at about 1:30 in the morning,” said resident Christian Buttshaw. “Probably minors breaking through cars,” he added. “And I’ll tell you that I think that they were too, because they took the six bucks in my center console and they left my tools for work, which is actually very nice of them. I appreciate it.” 

Multiple residents reported items missing from their vehicles, and APD said their investigation is ongoing. 

“Reports on this are not completed due to the complexity of the details,” said Chief McKichan in an email to ABC 6 News. “If anyone has any additional information or video footage tied to these thefts, we would appreciate it if they would contact us. Once our investigation has been completed, the case will be sent to the Mower County Attorney’s Office for review related to any potential charges.”