WCSO believes gang involved in recent string of car burglaries

WILLIAMSON COUNTY, Texas - The Williamson County Sheriff’s Office believes a gang is responsible for the increase in car burglaries the area has been seeing since this summer.

8 cars were burglarized in the span of 30 minutes near Cedar Park Tuesday around 2:30 am. “In those cases, most of the vehicles were left unlocked and the reason we know the exact time is the surveillance video that some of the victims were able to provide,” said Patricia Gutierrez the public information officer for the Williamson County Sheriff’s Office.

The Williamson County Sheriff’s Office is cracking down on just who hit that area. “They walk up to a vehicle see if it’s unlocked they’ll go ahead and open it up and see what they find,” said Gutierrez.

This isn’t the only incident of cars getting broken into within the county, according to the county 400 cars have been hit since March 1st. In the video of these previous incidents, you can see the suspects Drive up, get out, and walk up to the cars. “In most cases, we are reminding people to lock their vehicles don’t leave any valuables in the vehicles,” said Gutierrez.

The sheriff's offices believe a gang is responsible for a lot of these cases. “The members are normally Hispanic or black males between the ages of 12 years old and 20 years old, we do have a few females in the group. They send in the younger ones the minors to try and open the door of the vehicles because we don’t have a record of fingerprints,” said Gutierrez.

Some of the items stolen from these cars include guns which have the sheriff’s office concerned. Out of those 400 reports, 38 firearms were stolen.

“We have seen a lot of victims leave their firearms in unlocked vehicles so these members of this organization are armed because they are taking these firearms with them,” said Gutierrez.

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If you do see a car burglary taking place, because they may be armed the sheriff’s office urges you to not confront them, instead get a good description and call 911.

Many agencies recommended start a routine and you lock your car around 9pm every evening. They also recommend if you have a ring doorbell camera to register it with the county. The sheriff’s office said this can help detectives track down suspects in these cases.