CLEVELAND, Ohio (WOIO) – People who live in Ohio City, Gordon Square, and Edgewater say they are frustrated and feeling unsafe due to ongoing car break-ins.
“We shouldn’t let this be the standard for the neighborhood,” says Shelby Smith.
Pictures that were sent in to 19 News show smashed windows and glass covering the streets from a recent string of car break-ins on West 70th Street.
Shelby Smith says this has become the new normal in her neighborhood.
“Every day I see glass on the ground. Every day I see another car getting smashed, a window being smashed and it is just not a way to live,” says Smith.
In November, Smith was a victim of these thieves.
She says the windows of her car were smashed in and her belongings were stolen.
Last week, she was walking her dog with her boyfriend on West 70th Street.
The couple saw about a dozen cars broken into.
“We just saw glass, glass, glass, and more glass,” says Smith.
Then just last night, she says thieves broke into her neighbor’s car.
“It is not fun and it really stresses me out every night. I wake up and think ‘did my car get broken into again?‘”, says Smith.
Christina Curtis, who lives in an apartment building in Edgewater says her landlord sent out a note warning about the string of break-ins.
“Since I have been here for probably for about nine months, there have been a couple slew of break-ins in groupings that affected a lot of people who live in the area,” says Curtis.
19 News reached out to Cleveland Police and they told us in just the past month, they arrested a suspect who was breaking in to cars at the West Side Market.
Detectives used flock cameras to make an another arrest for a stolen vehicle.
Police also monitored a hot spot location, W 65th Street and made another arrest there.
“It is never good to experience that in the neighborhood, so I hope they work and kind of get it resolved, so people feel safer,” says Curtis.
“It is just really devastating. It is not a good way to feel in your neighborhood that you are just being vandalized constantly,” says Smith.
Cleveland Police says they are also adding extra patrols to these neighborhoods.
However, their number one message to the community, is if you see something, say something.
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