Bay Area broken windows and car break ins

anxman · Feb 24, 2016

Hi all, I've been a ten year resident of the Bay Area and auto burglaries have always been common but they have recently skyrocketed in frequency. Unfortunately, I had another burglary on Monday night where the thieves smashed one of my side windows of my Model S. There was nothing visible in the car and nothing of monetary value stolen but that didn't prevent the thieves from causing hundreds of dollars in damage anyway (and stress).

Just wanted to let y'all know to please be extra vigilant. I often times will leave valuables in the trunk thinking that the lack of visibility would prevent burglars but from now on, I strongly advise using the frunk for any valuables.

Tesla Burlingame advised that they are now seeing at least one Model S come in per month with a smashed window. One particular case stuck out where they advised that a woman parked her Model S in the handicapped spot in front of Macy's and was burglarized in the middle of the afternoon!

Sources:
- SFPD reports near 50% increase in car break-ins compared to last year - Story | KTVU
- Car break-ins fuel spike in S.F. property crimes - SFGate

sorka · Feb 24, 2016

I assume this was while you were out and you had your S parked on the street or a parking lot?

Lloyd · Feb 24, 2016

The only time I had a car broken into recently was in San Francisco right down from the convention center. I took my cell phone and put it into the trunk so it was not visible while outside of the car. Gone for about 1.5 hours while at dinner and returned to find the trunk forced open (not tesla at the time) and the cell phone missing. Someone watched me leave my belongings in the trunk and then broke into it. I was able to call the A** H*** and call him all sorts of names before I shut down the phone account.

AmpedRealtor · Feb 24, 2016

There's a pretty severe backlash in San Francisco against Silicon Valley types who are responsible for buying buildings, pushing out long-time residents, and ultimately, stratospheric property values that very few outside of Silicon Valley can afford. Disenfranchised city dwellers may be seeing a Tesla as a vehicle owned by someone like that. Just guessing. As Shakespeare said, revenge is a dish best served cold. Lots of angry people out there.

jeffro01 · Feb 24, 2016

AmpedRealtor said:
There's a pretty severe backlash in San Francisco against Silicon Valley types who are responsible for buying buildings, pushing out long-time residents, and ultimately, stratospheric property values that very few outside of Silicon Valley can afford. Disenfranchised city dwellers may be seeing a Tesla as a vehicle owned by someone like that. Just guessing. As Shakespeare said, revenge is a dish best served cold. Lots of angry people out there.

None of which gives anyone the right, or justification, for the destruction of someone else's personal property. I'm tired of the BS in SF regarding the attack on TAX PAYING residents simply because life's not fair. SF is an odd place...

Either way, rule #1 when it comes to preventing theft is to NEVER appear to put anything in a trunk, or other potentially concealed place, while in view of the public. Any thief turned public servant will tell you, they made their living simply watching other people carelessly assume they weren't being watched when moving items to the trunk or putting things under seats. Even if the item isn't valuable, you've given someone a reason to break in to your car...

Jeff

JPP · Feb 24, 2016

jeffro01 said:
None of which gives anyone the right, or justification, for the destruction of someone else's personal property. I'm tired of the BS in SF regarding the attack on TAX PAYING residents simply because life's not fair. SF is an odd place...

Either way, rule #1 when it comes to preventing theft is to NEVER appear to put anything in a trunk, or other potentially concealed place, while in view of the public. Any thief turned public servant will tell you, they made their living simply watching other people carelessly assume they weren't being watched when moving items to the trunk or putting things under seats. Even if the item isn't valuable, you've given someone a reason to break in to your car...

Jeff

FWIW I live in the SF Bay Area and for a long time it has been my habit to make a stop a block or 2 from my final destination (street parking, garage, valet, etc). I get out and put away anything I need to so that at my destination I do nothing else but exit and lock up. And, BTW, since the S has an open center console, when I got each of our S I bought a nice good quality basic black Lightning-to-USB cable for our iPhones. Never leave any white cable or headphone visible--it screams 'there's a nice iPhone / iPad in there'. Also for my USB music I use a very low profile SanDisk USB drive that is essentially invisible.

AmpedRealtor · Feb 24, 2016

jeffro01 said:
None of which gives anyone the right, or justification, for the destruction of someone else's personal property. I'm tired of the BS in SF regarding the attack on TAX PAYING residents simply because life's not fair. SF is an odd place...

Agreed that there is no justification for this, but understanding the context for the underlying frustration that is causing so much of this type of vandalism might help to put it in perspective. Things like this don't just happen in a vacuum. There is an underlying cause to this anger, but given the nature of our economic system, I don't see any solutions that would mollify those who are inappropriately expressing this anger.

jeffro01 · Feb 24, 2016

AmpedRealtor said:
Agreed that there is no justification for this, but understanding the context for the underlying frustration that is causing so much of this type of vandalism might help to put it in perspective. Things like this don't just happen in a vacuum. There is an underlying cause to this anger, but given the nature of our economic system, I don't see any solutions that would mollify those who are inappropriately expressing this anger.

Fair enough... This one is a slippery slope to a political discussion which we all know isn't a place we go here at TMC.

Jeff

- - - Updated - - -

JPP said:
FWIW I live in the SF Bay Area and for a long time it has been my habit to make a stop a block or 2 from my final destination (street parking, garage, valet, etc). I get out and put away anything I need to so that at my destination I do nothing else but exit and lock up. And, BTW, since the S has an open center console, when I got each of our S I bought a nice good quality basic black Lightning-to-USB cable for our iPhones. Never leave any white cable or headphone visible--it screams 'there's a nice iPhone / iPad in there'. Also for my USB music I use a very low profile SanDisk USB drive that is essentially invisible.

Indeed. I have watched a number of videos put out by thief's turned from the dark side (hehe lol), and they all have the same general rule number one so I figured it was worth reiterating here.

Jeff

patrick40363 · Feb 24, 2016

These type of break-ins have been going on for longer than Tesla has been around. Same thing was happening in the 1960's when I was growing up.

AmpedRealtor said:
There's a pretty severe backlash in San Francisco against Silicon Valley types who are responsible for buying buildings, pushing out long-time residents, and ultimately, stratospheric property values that very few outside of Silicon Valley can afford. Disenfranchised city dwellers may be seeing a Tesla as a vehicle owned by someone like that. Just guessing. As Shakespeare said, revenge is a dish best served cold. Lots of angry people out there.

jcaspar · Feb 24, 2016

I suspect the alarm does not alert with just the window broken. While a dash cam would be of little to no use in these situations, maybe stickers on the windows noting the car is video monitored.

One of the many reasons I am so very glad to be out of the Bay Area.

GoTslaGo · Feb 24, 2016

patrick40363 said:
These type of break-ins have been going on for longer than Tesla has been around. Same thing was happening in the 1960's when I was growing up.

Yep. Noticed it seemed to have decreased in the 90s and 2000s. Found it odd that people would leave so many things visible in their cars recently (GPS, dash cams, etc...).

Growing up we cleared EVERYTHING out before we went somewhere and carried it. Or made sure it was stashed away before we got to our destination (so no one could see us put it away).

Some folks left the windows open: cheaper to get your stock radio stolen (unlikely, no one wanted AM sets back then) than to get your windows replaced. This we didn't do, but knew people who did.

On the last note, an old roommate of mine never bothered to lock his car which he parked in the street. One day he had to chase out a homeless man sleeping in his car before he could go to work. He started to lock it after that.

Unfortunately there's nothing you can do about pure vandalism.

FlatSix911 · Feb 24, 2016

Unfortunately, much of the Bay Area is turning into urban tribes that promote class warfare ... very sad.

You cannot help the poor by destroying the rich.
You cannot strengthen the weak by weakening the strong.
You cannot bring about prosperity by discouraging thrift.
You cannot lift the wage earner up by pulling the wage payer down.
You cannot further the brotherhood of man by inciting class hatred.

cwerdna · Feb 25, 2016

Lloyd said:
The only time I had a car broken into recently was in San Francisco right down from the convention center. I took my cell phone and put it into the trunk so it was not visible while outside of the car. Gone for about 1.5 hours while at dinner and returned to find the trunk forced open (not tesla at the time) and the cell phone missing. Someone watched me leave my belongings in the trunk and then broke into it. I was able to call the A** H*** and call him all sorts of names before I shut down the phone account.

patrick40363 said:
These type of break-ins have been going on for longer than Tesla has been around. Same thing was happening in the 1960's when I was growing up.

FWIW, many years ago, WAY before the Model S existed, a coworker got his car broken into when parked near Moscone Center. They stole his company laptop (very bad news since it had source code on it and it was likely not encrypted).

Just a few weeks ago, a coworker got his car broken into in the city of SF. They smashed his window to break in. AFAIK, nothing of value was visible. It was an old Corolla, a decade old or even older w/over 120K miles on it. He said they stole the broken (won't boot) MacBook Pro that was in his trunk and not visible. It was only in the trunk for him to bring it to eventually bring it to Best Buy for e-waste disposal.

There have been stories like these about Bay Area and SF car break ins:
Car Burglaries Hit Epidemic Levels Across Bay Area | NBC Bay Area
San Francisco Club Promoters Help Battle Car Burglaries in SOMA | NBC Bay Area
Spike In Car Break-Ins Has Many Blaming Prop 47: SFist

Every time in the past when I've looked at My Neighborhood Update and https://www.crimereports.com/ for any areas of SF that I ocassionally visit (not even bad ones like Bayview District or Hunters Point, which I don't go to), it seems like the amount of petty crime is insane there.

Gizmotoy · Feb 25, 2016

The Model S has been a target since the beginning, for reasons others have noted. There's a pretty lengthy thread on it here on TMC: Vandalized twice - Bigotry is alive and well on San Francisco Peninsula

anxman · Feb 25, 2016

AmpedRealtor said:
Agreed that there is no justification for this, but understanding the context for the underlying frustration that is causing so much of this type of vandalism might help to put it in perspective. Things like this don't just happen in a vacuum. There is an underlying cause to this anger, but given the nature of our economic system, I don't see any solutions that would mollify those who are inappropriately expressing this anger.

I'm empathetic with the class disparities in SF. They've gone from bad to worse while I've lived here, and the skyrocketing housing prices have only exacerbated the problems. That being said, stealing from and vandalizing fellow citizens of SF doesn't do anything to help these problems. Destroying $500 in value to steal $10 is just a waste of resourcing which could be better allocated.

That aside, my intent for this thread is to encourage everybody to protect all valuables in their frunks, and to keep the interiors of their cars SPOTLESS while parking anywhere in the Bay Area. The crime problems will probably get worse before they get better and dealing with a broken window is stressful and expensive.

Lloyd · Feb 25, 2016

FlatSix911 said:
Unfortunately, much of the Bay Area is turning into urban tribes that promote class warfare ... very sad.

You cannot help the poor by destroying the rich.
You cannot strengthen the weak by weakening the strong.
You cannot bring about prosperity by discouraging thrift.
You cannot lift the wage earner up by pulling the wage payer down.
You cannot further the brotherhood of man by inciting class hatred.

The complete list from William Boetcker (not A. Lincoln)

1. You cannot bring about prosperity by discouraging thrift.
2. You cannot strengthen the weak by weakening the strong
3. You cannot help the poor man by destroying the rich.
4. You cannot further the brotherhood of man by inciting class hatred.
5. You cannot build character and courage by taking away man’s initiative and independence.
6. You cannot help small men by tearing down big men.
7. You cannot lift the wage earner by pulling down the wage payer.
8. You cannot keep out of trouble by spending more than your income.
9. You cannot establish security on borrowed money.
10 You cannot help men permanently by doing for them what they will not do for themselves.

FlatSix911 · Feb 25, 2016

Lloyd said:
The complete list from William Boetcker (not A. Lincoln)

1. You cannot bring about prosperity by discouraging thrift.
2. You cannot strengthen the weak by weakening the strong
3. You cannot help the poor man by destroying the rich.
4. You cannot further the brotherhood of man by inciting class hatred.
5. You cannot build character and courage by taking away man’s initiative and independence.
6. You cannot help small men by tearing down big men.
7. You cannot lift the wage earner by pulling down the wage payer.
8. You cannot keep out of trouble by spending more than your income.
9. You cannot establish security on borrowed money.
10 You cannot help men permanently by doing for them what they will not do for themselves.

LLoyd,
Thanks for the complete list ... I may add this to my TMC signature line.

Kandiru · Feb 25, 2016

AmpedRealtor said:
There's a pretty severe backlash in San Francisco against Silicon Valley types who are responsible for buying buildings, pushing out long-time residents, and ultimately, stratospheric property values that very few outside of Silicon Valley can afford. Disenfranchised city dwellers may be seeing a Tesla as a vehicle owned by someone like that. Just guessing. As Shakespeare said, revenge is a dish best served cold. Lots of angry people out there.

You bet, hunger makes the revolution.

Drivin · Feb 25, 2016

There are also people getting their cars keyed in the area for not having a front license plate installed.
I think some notes being left about - "rich rule breakers".

Probably just more of the 1% backlash we saw with Occupy Wall Street, then the google/facebook buses, and now with the elections in full swing, more about taxes, the rich and so on.

This too shall pass.

anxman · Feb 25, 2016

Drivin said:
There are also people getting their cars keyed in the area for not having a front license plate installed.
I think some notes being left about - "rich rule breakers".

Probably just more of the 1% backlash we saw with Occupy Wall Street, then the google/facebook buses, and now with the elections in full swing, more about taxes, the rich and so on.

This too shall pass.

Do you have more information about this?

Bay Area broken windows and car break ins

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