People Who Work in Northwest DC Neighborhood Report Series of Car Break-Ins

A series of vehicle break-ins in a Northwest D.C. neighborhood has targeted people who do cleaning, construction and other work for the residents of the area.

Since September, a number of incidents have been reported to police, where people who work in the Forest Hills neighborhood that borders Rock Creek Park have come out to find a window of their car, truck or van broken and valuables taken. In two cases, the vehicle was left unlocked.

One neighbor said an employee was hit twice in two weeks.

The items stolen were those the victims might not want or need to take inside a home with them.

According to five D.C. police reports obtained by News4, the items taken include: 

• power tools
• wallets and purses 
• Maryland driver’s licenses
• U.S. work permit cards and other documents 
• passports
• cash - that in one case totaled $3,000
• credit cards
• cell phones

Architect Travis Price has an office on Chesterfield Place, and employees and contractors come and go every day. One of his employees, a student, had her car broken into, only to have the car she borrowed from her mother broken into the following week.

"This is just a classic setup, and it doesn't need to happen. It's really making everybody unhappy," he said.

Our sister station Telemundo 44 spoke with one of the victims in Spanish. He said he lost valuable documents, cash and tools from a vehicle broken into on Linnean Avenue in December. 

He added that he'd heard reports of about a dozen similar crimes to workers' vehicles in the area.

According to the police reports, all of the vehicles broken into except one had either Maryland or Virginia license plates. All of the victims, except one, listed those states as their home addresses.  

The police statistics are based on reports made to them. 

It’s believed that there are some cases where the victims, for various reasons, did not contact police.