St. Augustine police investigating string of car burglaries, break-ins

ST. AUGUSTINE, Fla. — Action News Jax is getting videos showing cars in St. Augustine getting broken into, and items inside stolen. It’s changing the minds of people who thought their neighborhood was safe.

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One of those people, who didn’t want to share his name, caught the person who broke into his car on camera.

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“You definitely feel violated. I was very angry and not happy,” he says.

St. Augustine police tell Action News Jax there have been at least two separate car burglaries around the city since last Friday. The man we spoke with shared the doorbell video from when more than $1,000 in personal items were stolen from his car.

“I think I was reading to my kids in their bedroom at the time,” he says, telling me it happened just the other night at around 8:45 PM. “[The thief] went into my wife’s car, stole her visor, stole glasses, and maybe some other things. We haven’t figured it out yet.”

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The video shared with Action News Jax also shows the man’s personal mail stolen right from inside the drop box on his front porch.

“Do you feel that this is a generally safe area?” I asked him, “Absolutely,” he responded, “I’m never concerned about crime in this neighborhood. But, now, this really changes my mind around it,” he said.

This comes a day after St. Augustine police shared a video on Facebook of a person breaking into someone’s truck in a local neighborhood.

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Police say the key factor connecting the car burglaries are doors left unlocked. The man we spoke with says he’d left his keys in his wife’s car, one of the items stolen that night.

“No matter how safe you think your community is, lock your car doors and make sure your garage doors are closed,” says Officer Dee Brown, the public information officer with the police department.

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Right now, St. Augustine police are still searching for the people responsible for the burglaries. If you or anyone you know has had a car broken into or any items stolen, police say to report it right away. You can report information on these cases by contacting the department here.

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