BRADENTON BEACH – It’s easy to get distracted by the beauty of the beaches and surrounding areas when visiting Anna Maria Island, but four vehicle break-ins on July 30 are a reminder that even paradise can have problems.
Two vehicles were broken into at Coquina Beach and two at Cortez Beach, according to reports filed by two Bradenton Beach police officers. The crimes all took place within an hour or two of each other.
According to a report filed by Officer Roy Joslin III, he was dispatched to a vehicle burglary on June 30 at 7:04 p.m. in the 1000 block of the Cortez Beach parking area. Two female adult victims said they had their purses stolen from their car after they parked and took a walk to the beach. They said they were only gone for about 15 minutes, but believed they had left the car unlocked with the purses in plain view in the back seat. There were no witnesses and no video footage available for the area.
At 8:18 p.m., shortly after Joslin was investigating the first break-in, Officer Devon Straight was dispatched to another vehicle burglary in the 2650 block of the Coquina Beach parking lot. When Straight arrived, he spoke to a female victim who said she left her vehicle around 5:30 p.m., returning at 8:15 p.m. to find her rear window broken out and her purse missing. The victim said the purse was in plain sight laying in the back seat. In his report, Straight said this burglary, the burglary investigated by Joslin and two others that happened during the same time frame were possibly related.
Straight found another vehicle with a broken rear window at Coquina Beach as he was completing his investigation of the first vehicle. He waited for the owners of the second vehicle to return, which they did about 15 minutes later. The owner reported a purse that had been located in the back seat was missing.
The fourth vehicle at the Cortez Beach parking lot had an iPad taken during a break-in that closely resembled the others during the same time frame.
The four burglaries were referred to a detective for further investigation. No suspects have been identified and the investigation remains open.
“It’s hard to catch these guys, they can easily gather around a vehicle and look like beachgoers,” Bradenton Beach Lt. Lenard Diaz said. “This happens every now and then on busy holiday weekends. They come from out of town and blend in. It doesn’t take long to bust out a window and grab a purse or an iPad.”
Diaz says the best deterrent is to always lock your doors and keep valuable items hidden out of sight. Leaving valuable items in plain view is an invitation to thieves. They want to get in and out fast, so if they don’t see anything valuable, they’re likely to move on to another vehicle.
