The cold weather streak hitting Minnesota over the next week prompted Minneapolis Police to renew a warning about possible auto thefts on Saturday.
According to John Elder, the Director of Police Information for the Minneapolis Police Department, almost 75 percent of the cars which have been stolen in 2021 in Minneapolis, were stolen while the vehicle was running and unattended.
"Some of the most important things that you can do is remain with your vehicle, or in your vehicle with the doors locked, so you can make sure you are in control of your vehicle while it's running," Elder said. "We're seeing this happen literally 24 hours a day."
Elder said the auto thefts are not confined to just the winter months, either.
"15 to 25 percent of the vehicles stolen during the summer in Minneapolis are stolen while running and unattended," he said. "A lot of those are delivery vehicles. The numbers truly skyrocket in the winter. It's something that is preventable."
An even more dangerous situation is the threat of child abductions. Elder says there have been cases where a child has been left unattended inside a running car, which was then stolen.
"These folks that steal these cars are jumping in and going. They aren't spending a lot of time looking around to see what's in the back seat," said Elder.
That situation happened on Saturday afternoon when a 1-year-old boy was reported missing after the car he was left in was stolen in north Minneapolis.
The Minnesota BCA issued an AMBER Alert on Saturday afternoon, but later canceled it after the child was located safe in Brooklyn Park.
According to MPD data, the auto thefts are occurring primarily in neighborhoods including East Philips, the border of the Northrop and Bancroft neighborhoods, and Marcy-Holmes.
