San Francisco sets new measures to fight car break-ins

SAN FRANCISCO, April 12 (Xinhua) -- San Francisco Mayor Mark Farrell said Thursday that his government has unveiled a vast expansion of a new campaign to combat rampant auto break-ins in this U.S. western resort city, despite a remarkable fall in car burglaries in the first quarter of this year.

Across the city, car break-ins fell 17 percent in the period from January through March, compared with the same period last year, police data showed.

"My efforts and coordination with SFPD has resulted in a 17% drop in car break ins," Farrell twitted Thursday.

"We have increased foot patrols and established a unit specifically to deal with property crimes," he said.

San Francisco police said they are adjusting police force to increase foot patrols, focusing on burglary hot spots, and creating a centralized investigation team to pursue cases citywide.

The police will place more efforts on collecting fingerprints from break-in crime scenes to grow the city's database of prints, so as to better contain the car break-in epidemic that has haunted the city for years.

San Francisco law enforcement agency is launching a "Park Smart!" campaign to fight car burglaries, urging the public not to leave any valuables in their cars, such as cell phones, luggage, backpacks, and even sunglasses.

"Don't tempt a car thief," said one of their posters on preventing auto break-ins.

Many signs bearing slogans like "If you love it, don't leave it" will be placed in popular resort areas, tourist destinations and burglary hot spots.

Car theft has been a big headache not only for tourists but also for locals for many years, which tarnished the image of San Francisco as a major resort city in on the U.S. coast.

There were reports of an average of 85 break-ins every day in 2017, causing a huge uproar among local residents. Enditem