HOLLYWOOD, Fla. – A smash-and-grab thief hit several cars in Hollywood’s Emerald Hills neighborhood overnight Friday, leading police to investigate.
According to police and neighbors, the crook hit 10 cars near the 3500 block of North 31st Terrace.
“It’s a little disappointing that something like this could happen when we do have 24-hour police presence here in the neighborhood,” resident Justin Zeig said.
Surveillance video shows the suspect checking car doors.
“This is actually the day that my wife and I took the kids to school together,” Zeig said. “My wife turned to me and says, ‘Hey, why’d you throw everything all over the floor of my car?’ I said, ‘I didn’t touch anything in your car.’ So it was clear that somebody had broken in.”
Homeowners’ association President Tom Jahnes said, “A white Hyundai that appeared to be driven by one single person came into my driveway and entered both of my cars and stole some items from from the vehicles.”
Police were at the scene much of the morning investigating.
“I think the good news is that we’ve got an excellent amount of police activity here in the morning,” Jahnes said. “They’re clearly following up on this. I’ve got great video images that are also following up on we have a license plate reader as well that we purchased here in the community to help the police department in the case of an unfortunate incident like this.”
He added, “I’m confident that they’ll get the data that they need from those kinds of resources and, as a community, I think we will also be more on the lookout for this kind of behavior in the future.”
Anyone with information is asked to call Broward Crime Stoppers at 954-493-8477.