Shortly before 8 a.m. Nov. 26, Scott Giroux discovered that his car, parked on the Haskell Indian Nations University campus, had been burglarized.

His first reaction was a frustrated laugh.

“I’ve been a student here for five years, and there have been a lot of car burglaries and thefts here, but this was the first time it had happened to me,” the 23-year-old said.

Giroux, who lives in a Haskell residence hall, saw that someone bashed out a side window on his 1984 Saturn and attempted to pry a car stereo out of the dash. The dash was damaged, but the stereo remained in place. A tool box and amplifier were taken from the trunk. The trunk had only a latch on it.

“I had a box of CDs in the back seat, and they didn’t even take it,” Giroux said.

His car was one of more than 25 vehicles struck by burglars throughout the city in the past two weeks, according to Lawrence Police reports.

That is a large number of burglaries in a short period, police spokesman Sgt. Mike Pattrick said. Part of the reason may have been that many people, including Haskell and Kansas University students as well as Lawrence residents, were away for the Thanksgiving holiday, he said.

“They (burglars) are going to want to hit an area that is heavily populated where there are a lot of cars that give them a lot of opportunities in the least amount of time,” Pattrick said.

Increasingly common

Vehicle burglary is one of the more common crimes reported to police. Last year 786 burglaries were reported to Lawrence Police. That was much higher than the 661 auto burglaries reported the previous year.

Month-by-month crime statistics showed the difference between the two years occurred in the months of January, February and March of 2000. Only two burglaries were reported during those three months in 2000, when the Lawrence area experienced a cold winter.

During the same three months in 2001, there were 165 reported auto burglaries, police records showed.

Auto burglaries this year totaled 485 from January to the end of August, the latest information showed. No information was available for the past three years on arrests or convictions for the crimes.

Auto burglars appear to favor mild-weather months. The highest number of burglaries reported this year was 96 in May. Last year the highest number of incidents occurred in September (92), October (88) and November (86).

The primary targets for auto burglars are stereo equipment and compact discs, police said. Some reports showed that cases of CDs valued at $1,000 or more had been taken.

‘Easy money’

“Some people think they have to carry every CD they own with them when they travel in a car,” said Lt. Schuyler Bailey of the Kansas University Public Safety Office.

And used CDs can easily be sold to certain retail outlets for as much as $10 each.

“That’s pretty easy money,” Bailey said.

On the KU campus, auto burglaries declined in 2001 – to 73 incidents from 93 in 2000.

Although police statistics don’t show December as one of the months with a lot of auto burglaries (there were 61 in 2001 and 36 in 2000) the potential is there because it is the Christmas shopping season.

Police warn drivers against keeping valuables in a car any longer than necessary and to avoid leaving them in plain sight.

The effect auto burglaries have on car insurance premiums is difficult to judge because it usually is included in the comprehensive category of the coverage, said Vicki Buening, spokeswoman for the Kansas Insurance Department.

In addition to the cost factor, taking time to get repairs for a car damaged in a burglary can be a hassle, Giroux said.

“I’m getting ready to take finals and I have a lot of things going on right now, and this the last thing I need to have to deal with,” he said.