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Samantha Hayes reporting Salt Lake City police have a timely warning for holiday shoppers, keep your valuables out of sight in your cars!
When police say valuables, its not just Christmas presents that you need to keep out of sight.
For some of us, our cars are holding spaces for all kinds of stuff....backpacks, skis, drycleaning, and loose paperwork...just the things thieves are looking for.
Barbara Greene,Shopper: "It just seems that during this season people are walking around looking for things in cars and its a perfect opportunity to find them."
Dwayne Baird, Salt Lake City Police Dept.: "That item of value may not just be Christmas Items, CDs, cameras, gloves, cigarettes, even change in the cigarette ashtray is enough for some people to break into a car to steal."
With all the parking lot traffic during the holidays, its easy to break into a car without anyone around even noticing. But again, keep this stuff in mind after Christmas..police say the numbers of car prowls have been on the rise year round..
In just this last month-485 car prowls in the Salt Lake CIty area.
And a lot of it is tied to identity theft...so make sure you take things like day planners, receipts, bank statements, with you..along with all those Christmas presents.
