Austin police looking for 7 suspects in connection to car burglaries at parks

Austin car burglary repeat offenders

The Austin Police Department is looking for seven people they said are connected to car burglaries at city parks. All the suspects have criminal histories.

AUSTIN, Texas - The Austin Police Department is looking for seven people they said are connected to car burglaries at city parks. 

All the suspects have criminal histories.

Austin car burglaries

The backstory:

In March, Austin Police Department Detective Shawn Green conducted a press conference announcing arrests made in what was deemed ‘a large criminal enterprise.’

Police had worked with other agencies to arrest multiple people who had been burglarizing vehicles at different parks around Austin for a couple of years.

APD make arrests in connection to car burglaries

Austin police have caught almost a dozen women accused of breaking into cars at parks in Austin for years

Detective Green is now looking for many of the same people for committing the same crimes. All seven are facing felony charges.

"The reality is our responsibility is only within the scope of identifying, obtaining arrest warrants and making arrests. We have nothing to do with what happens after," Detective Green said.

Detective Green said it is a public safety issue having to re-arrest people.

"Any incident may escalate, right? Someone comes out of the park and finds someone breaking into their car, and they chase them, or they confront them, and now we've gone from a simple property crime to a crime of violence. Additionally, there's the threat that it poses to our officers to have to continually re-arrest these offenders, the same individuals. Every time we do that, we're asking our officers take on the liability of having that encounter and safely getting them in custody, again, without harm to the public, to the officers, or to the suspect," Detective Green said.

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11 Austin car burglary suspects have been breaking into cars for years: APD

Austin police have caught almost a dozen women who have apparently been breaking into cars at parks in Austin for years.

He encourages people heading to city parks to plan ahead.

"If it's too big to carry, leave it at home if you can. If you do have to take it with you, conceal it in the trunk, put it somewhere that's more difficult where it can't be seen," Detective Green said. "Best case scenario, don't bring your valuables with you, all right."

FOX 7 reached out to the Travis County District and County Attorneys Offices about these cases and haven’t heard back. We will update the story when we do.

If you come in contact with anyone trying to break into a car, Austin police said do not go into them and instead call 911.