Car Break-Ins Decrease In City-Owned Garages

SAN FRANCISCO, CA — Auto break-ins have decreased significantly throughout city-owned parking garages in San Francisco due to increased efforts by police and the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency, city officials announced Tuesday.

Mayor Mark Farrell, Police Chief Bill Scott and SFMTA Director Ed Reiskin made the announcement Tuesday at the Sutter-Stockton Garage at 444 Stockton Street, which has seen an 83 percent decline in vehicle break-ins since last month.

The drop in break-ins at the heavily used Union Square-area garage is being credited with new public safety upgrades first implemented in February, which included assigning a dedicated police officer to the garage,
installing fencing and locking down electrical outlets to prevent loitering, according to the mayor's office.

Before the upgrades, January saw 44 car break-ins at the Sutter-Stockton garage. In March, after the upgrades were implemented, there were only nine break-ins reported. This month, so far, there have no break-ins, the mayor's office said.

"Enough is enough -- we are taking ambitious and smart new measures to prevent car break-ins in the city," Farrell said in a statement. "It should not be a gamble to park your car in San Francisco."

"Thanks to the existing safety upgrades in a number of our garages, the criminals of this city are beginning to think twice before breaking the law, and we are going to aggressively expand these security efforts across all our city-owned garages," Farrell said.

SFMTA officials have also installed 56 high-definition cameras at other high-traffic city-owned garages in an effort to reduce break-ins. After cameras were installed at the Lombard, Polk-Bush, Vallejo Street, Pierce
Street, North Beach and Portsmouth Square garages, city officials observed a significant decline in break-ins.

The Pierce Street Garage saw the most significant reduction over a six-month period, with a 55 percent drop in break-ins. Many of the new improvements are part of a larger effort by the SFTMA to incorporate new technology at city-owned garages and lots, which include adding new entry and exit stations, improved payment kiosks, two-way intercom systems, high definition cameras and a central monitoring station to
provide 24/7 assistance and monitor video.

So far, only six garages have undergone the technology upgrades, while upgrades are underway at two others. The fourteen remaining lots or garages will be outfitted with the upgrades by 2020, the mayor's office said.

The San Francisco Police Department has also partnered with the SFMTA to step up enforcement by deploying teams of plain-clothes officers at the garages and help the agency identify ways to make the facilities more secure.

"Our officers are making good, solid arrests and we are seeing an encouraging decrease in the auto burglaries over last year," Scott said in a statement. "This collaborative approach with our partner agencies is enabling SFPD to improve our responsiveness, educate the public on theft prevention and more effectively deter and investigate car break-ins," he said.

The announcement follows the introduction of the Park Smart campaign earlier this month, an increased effort by the Police Department and mayor's office aiming to reduce car break-ins with increased foot patrols,
units dedicated to dealing with property crimes, expanded investigative resources at district stations, more training in fingerprinting, and the launch of a new public awareness campaign geared toward tourists, reminding them not to leave valuables in unattended vehicles.

The combined ongoing efforts by the mayor's office, SFMTA and the Police Department have resulted in a 17 percent citywide decrease in car breaks-ins during the first three months of this year compared with last
year, according to the mayor's office.

— Bay City News; Image via Shutterstock