The best way to avoid being a victim of “jockeyboxing” — which means people walking through neighborhoods at night and stealing whatever they can grab from unlocked cars — is to lock your car. All the time.
That way, if you mistakenly leave your cell phone, purse, wallet, ipod, or change behind when you park in a driveway or street, you won’t be like the dozens of people in Eagle who had items like that taken from their during the last week of August. Or like the hundreds of people every year in the Treasure Valley who fall victim to such car burglaries.
It’s a totally preventable crime. You just have to lock your stuff up.
A 19-year-old Eagle man has admitted breaking into as many as 150 cars between Aug. 25 and Aug. 28. A 17-year-old boy acted as a lookout. That boy also broke into several cars.
Andrew B. McCormick got caught when one of the people who had stuff taken from his car saw McCormick wearing his backpack at a local video arcade on Aug. 29.
Eagle police found McCormick moments later. He eventually confessed to the break-ins. Officers located the 17-year-old later, and he also admitted what he did.
Once caught, the teens cooperated with police, showing them the neighborhoods where they broke into unlocked cars.
Those streets include Eagle Hills Way, Winged Foot Place, Spyglass Way, Pebble Beach Way, Palmetto Drive, Amanita Street, Farrington Drive, Thunderbird Way, Knoll Drive, Spring Hill Drive, Mango Drive, Eagle Hills Way, Longwood Drive, and Stierman Way.
The teens would take whatever they could find in the cars, including change, cash, camera cards, knives, papers, cords, headphones, glasses, CDs and DVDs, laptops, backpacks, cigarettes, and other items.
While that case was still pending, Eagle Police arrested McCormick and the 17-year-old boy Sept. 23 for breaking into cars Hill/Horseshoe Bend roads area.
Unlike the August case, where the information was routed to Ada County prosecutors for an arrest warrant, officers arrested McCormick and the 17-year-old on felony burglary charges that day.
Warrants filed in connection with the August car burglaries went out Wednesday. McCormick is now charged with four counts of felony burglary.
McCormick is being held in the Ada County Jail on a $20,000 bond.
The crime of felony burglary is punishable by up to 10 years in prison.
The 17-year-old is being held in the Ada County Juvenile Detention Center.