The recent spate of break-ins of automobiles continues, according to the Commerce Police Department.
During the past week, three more cases occurred.
Two of them were in the fenced parking lot of Baker & Taylor books where thieves took advantage of a company policy prohibiting all but clear bags from the building to steal purses left in two vehicles.
A 20-year-old white female said someone entered her Toyota Scion by breaking out the passenger-side window. The thief grabbed a purse that was hidden under cover on the back floor. He got $140 in cash, two bank credit cards, two other credit cards, a checkbook and miscellaneous other items.
A 28-year-old white female had a similar experience. She reported the passenger-side window broken and her purse removed from between the front seats.
It contained a debit card, Social Security card and driver’s license.
A witness, who does lawn maintenance for the company, reported seeing a suspicious white male in his late 30s run across the parking lot and get into a maroon Nissan Maxima.
The younger woman’s credit card was used to charge $50 at McDonald’s, $211.28 at Walmart and $42.79 at Race Trac, all at Banks Crossing. The card was denied at Hibbett Sports.
While the officer was talking to her, the woman got a text message from a friend who works at the Dairy Queen at Banks Crossing asking if her credit card had been stolen. When the victim contacted her friend, she learned that a white male matching the description the witness gave, had tried to use her card to purchase gift cards.
]
Police will look at video of the man from the DQ’s security system, the report indicated.
The other woman’s card had reportedly been used at Presto’s, Maysville Road, and at Walmart at Banks Crossing. The amounts of the transactions were not in the report.
The other case of entering an auto took place early in the morning at the coin laundry on South Broad Street.
The victim, a 23-year-old white female, said she had taken laundry from her vehicle into the building and left the vehicle’s door open because she was coming right back. When she got back to the vehicle, she discovered her billfold missing from between the front seats.
She lost her Social Security card and those of her husband and two kids, a food stamp card, Medicaid card and $42 in cash.