CBS4 Exclusive: Pinecrest Warns Residents About Car Hoppers

MIAMI (CBSMiami) - It's a problem in the past decade that has plagued communities from South Miami to Kendall and West Miami.

Now the Village of Pinecrest is warning residents about car hoppers who scour neighborhoods in the middle of the night looking for unlocked cars to burglarize.

There has been a 30 percent increase in the crime so far this year in Pinecrest and the Village is so concerned that it took to social media Monday night to caution residents that they had to be careful.

In an exclusive interview with CBS4's Peter D'Oench, one victim, Carmen Chavez, said she had been victimized two different times by car hoppers.

"It feels horrible," she said. "Now I have to be extra careful and lock our gates. Our house is completely fenced. They open the car and search for anything valuable. They don't take the GPS. I don't know what they are looking for, probably cash. One time they took a first aid kit and my neighbor found it and maybe they took it for drugs or medicine."

"We know they are mobile because ring camera video has captured them on bikes and when the lights come on from the houses, they take off. Some of them were seen walking around at 3 in the morning. All I can say is lock your doors."

Village spokeswoman Michelle Hammontree shared ring camera videos with CBS4 that she had received from residents whose neighborhoods had been struck by car hoppers recently.

"The most important message that we want to tell people is to lock your cars," said Hammontree. "At least 80 percent of car burglaries involve unlocked cars. So if people would just lock their cars, there would be a noticeable decrease in this crime in Pinecrest.

"These individuals called car hoppers go from car to car and if cars are locked, they move on," said Hammontree. "If they are not locked they will go around and rummage around until they find something of value. They will take anything like loose change, laptops, umbrellas, phones, whatever they can find."

The newest ring cam videos show two different incidents in April in which young men are seen strolling by cars while wearing backpacks and in the distance on one video you can a car being burglarized.

Hammontree says the suspects sometimes work in packs and are usually young people and sometimes they are vagrants. They often victimize neighborhoods between 3 a.m. and 4:30 a.m.

Hammontree says there has been a 30 percent hike in car hopping incidents in Pinecrest so far this year. She says car hoppers have burglarized 51 vehicles so far this year compared with 39 in the same time period last year.

Anyone who can help Pinecrest Police find the car hoppers should call Miami-Dade Crime Stoppers at (305) 471-TIPS (8477).