Published: August 04, 2009 09:53 pm      

NIAGARA FALLS: Police, tourism officials: Give me a break

Rash of car break-ins downtown has police on alert, tourist operators worried

At the height of tourism season in the Falls the numbers are not pretty. But it’s not how many visitors are flocking to town that those who try to bring tourists here and those who police the streets are talking about.

From June 1 through mid-July thieves have descended into the South End and Niagara Falls Boulevard tourist districts and into the frequently crime-plagued North End, breaking into vehicles ranging from cars to trucks to SUVs at a rate of two to three a day. Even the upscale DeVeaux and LaSalle neighborhoods haven’t escaped the recent rash of larcenies.

Worse yet, as bad as those numbers are, they only cover break-ins where a theft occurred. If you add smash-and-grab incidents where nothing was taken, the numbers climb alarmingly higher.

“I think it’s the economy,” said Gay Molnar, marketing director of the Aquarium of Niagara on Whirlpool Street. “Unfortunately for us, (many) of the people being targeted are tourists.”

The thieves have found easy pickings in parking lots of popular Niagara Falls Boulevard restaurants, South End hotels and, of course, tourist attractions.

The opening of the new Snow Park Niagara Falls saw a sudden spike in vehicle break-ins on Second Street, adjacent to the attraction. Prior to that, the area had been relatively break-in free.

“(The thieves) are doing this in broad daylight, it’s brazen,” Molnar said. “But (vehicle break-ins) are an issue in virtually any tourist area.”

Molnar said there have been a few incidents in the aquarium parking lot and staff at the attraction have done everything they can to help the victims.

“We’ve had staff go out and clean the broken glass in the cars,” she said, “and we help them to make police reports. In fact, the first thing (victims) ask is, ‘Are the police aware of (the break-in problem)?’ ”

Falls police say they are very aware of the skyrocketing number of thefts from vehicles. The department’s crime analyst has been paying close attention to plotting where the break-ins have been taking place, at what times of the day and what the thieves have been taking.

“They are small items that are very easy to grab hold of in the car,” Superintendent John Chella said.

The most common type of theft is what cops call a smash-and-grab, where the thief uses an object to break a window, reaches in and grabs something of value and flees.

“We’ve also had instances where (suspects) have gone from car to car checking to see if doors are unlocked,” Chella said.

The most popular single item taken by the thieves is the easiest one to steal and one of the most popular small electronics items on the market today. If GPS systems are flying off retail stores shelves at record rates, they are flying out of vehicles in the Falls even faster.

“The first thing we ask (a car theft victim) is, ‘What was taken?’,” Molnar said. “And 9 out of 10 times it’s a GPS.”

Because thieves are looking for small items to grab and run with, Chella said raising people’s awareness of the vehicle break-in problem is a key to reducing their vulnerability.

“Lock your (vehicle) doors,” the police chief said. “Take all your small items and secure them in a trunk or glove box. If thieves don’t see things to take, the chances are your car won’t get broken into.”

While preventive measures by motorists will help, Chella admits the arrests of thieves will be necessary to end the problem. Just this week, neighbors on Avenue caught a suspect who was walking around and trying to open the doors of parked vehicles.

A neighbor chase the suspect down the street, tackled him and held him until cops arrived.

“We had a long period of time where the break-ins were down, but this crime is cyclical,” Chella said. “We make arrests, the (thieves) go away, but when they finish (their jail time) they get back out and go right back to it. So the numbers will go down (when arrests are made) but until we do that you have to eliminate the opportunity (for thieves to strike).”

Chella said patrols in the targeted areas are being beefed up and officers are being provided with a criminal intelligence binder that has information on persons previously charged and convicted of vehicle thefts.

“That way, if an officer is on patrol and he sees someone suspicious there is a good chance they may be in the binder,” Chella said. “Then the officer will have information to help him investigate the person.”

Plain-clothes officers in unmarked cars and “other tactics” are also being used to put an end to the break-ins, Chella said.

“I think Chief Chella and his staff have been responsive,” Molnar said. “They know this is affecting the image of the region. They’ve been extremely, extremely co-operative.”