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Fighting Back Against Austin Car Burglaries

Updated: Thursday, January 10 2013, 04:56 PM CST

Car break-ins are on the rise in two distinct areas of Austin, according to a crime map tracked by Krimelabb.

Those areas are along Rundberg Lane and Riverside Drive.

Stealing from a car happens so often and it happens so quickly that it's often difficult for police to catch whoever did it, but there is one thing you can do to catch the crook, get your stuff back, and help police solve the case.


Security is really tight at Pago Wireless. The guard dog Max, who's usually very friendly, keeps an eye on the store. And what he doesn't catch the dozens of security cameras set up inside and out of the store do the trick.

"Everybody would want to know if somebody breaks into your car or your house, how did that thing happen? Everybody wants to know that," said Alex Dalaram with Pago Wireless. 

So when a robbery happened to security conscious business owner Alex Dalaram, he wanted to know exactly who did it.

"I didn't have my car locked. That's the only day I didn't lock my car," he said of the mistake that gave burglars easy access to his car.

"It's really not a good feeling. It's like the worst feeling I had, not about what they took in the car honestly, it's about somebody being inside my personal possession that I had.  And that's really not a good feeling."

The Rundberg Lane area, where Dalaram's car burglary happened has seen a spike in car breaks-ins and thefts in the past month. There have been more than 160 since the beginning of December. That's up 38 percent from just 117 break-ins in the month prior. 

Police say it is usually just a few people doing most of the robberies and having picture and video is one of the best ways to solve the crime.

"I'm glad we had the camera in the perfect spot and bam! We got them," said Dalaram of catching the robbers red-handed on surveillance video. "I hope my part did the job and we can follow the professionals to capture whoever did this, because it happens to a lot of people around here."

The suspects in Dalaram's case haven't been arrested yet; the robbery just happened on Tuesday.
But police say there is a much, much better chance of catching them since he has surveillance photos.

If you recognize the men in the pictures, give Austin Police a call.

By Karen KileyFighting Back Against Austin Car Burglaries