Two cars stolen within hours Friday
Woman’s dog who was in her car is missing
The National Insurance Crime Bureau last week released its ranking of the worst spots for vehicle theft in the country.
The Albuquerque metro area had the highest per capita auto theft rate in the country in 2017, a title it has held for two consecutive years. Santa Fe is far lower on the list, ranking 111th. In 2017, according to the rankings, there were about 384 cars in the Santa Fe area reported stolen to the National Crime Information Center, more than one a day.
On Friday, the day after that report came out, two local residents reported their cars stolen within a couple of hours, according to Santa Fe Police reports.
Around 8 p.m., a man told police his car was stolen on Avenida de San Marcos, off Rodeo
Road, after he tried to confront a stranger who he said had been snooping in his garage.
According to a police report, the man was in his back yard on Friday when he heard someone in his garage. When he went to investigate, he told police, he saw a Hispanic male with no shirt, short black hair and multiple tattoos inside his garage.
The man started to walk away, and the victim followed in his car, the report says. He told police he got out of his car to question the stranger about why he’d been inside his home. The man ran around the victim’s vehicle, shoved him away, then got inside and started to drive away in his 2014 Volkswagen.
The victim told police he grabbed the stranger through the window, but the man got away. The report says the victim suffered minor cuts to his right arm in the incident.
Two hours earlier, a woman on Zepol Road had her car stolen with her little dog inside.
Mary Harrison told police she was getting ready to leave her home in a mobile home park on Zepol Road on Friday around 6:30 p.m. when she noticed she’d forgotten something inside.
She left her 2007 Chevy Equinox running in the driveway and during the few moments she was inside the home, she told officers, someone ran up to her car and drove away.
Her Shih Tzu, Molly, was inside.
“I haven’t heard a thing from the police officers at all, and it’s killing me,” Harrison said on Sunday. “I don’t care about the car. It’s her I’m worried about.”
Harrison told police that she saw a slender Hispanic male with facial hear wearing a black T-shirt and jeans take her car.
The dog goes by the names Molly and Polita, Harrison said. She’s roughly 4 years old and somewhere in the range of 12 pounds.
“Please, please be on the lookout for her,” Harrison urged on Sunday. “Anything that I can do to get her back. She belongs here with me.”
Capt. Mark Lewandowski of the Santa Fe Police Department said that anyone with information about the dog can call the Crime Stoppers number at 505955-5050, or dispatch at 505-4283710.