AUSTIN (KXAN) — This month, when Miles Vining went rock climbing along the Barton Creek Greenbelt, he came back to the parking lot to find the windows of his van smashed in.
“Someone came up and said ‘someone broke into a van out front,’ and I knew it instantly that was definitely my van,” he said.
He parked at the entrance at the Seismic Wall near S. US 360 and Mopac. Vining said his laptop was taken.
Before he left the lot, he said he saw a group of people pacing around the cars, then sitting on a nearby bench. Those same individuals were caught on his van’s dashcam, and police confirmed with KXAN they’re “persons of interest” in the case.
The investigation is still ongoing. The Austin Police Department said detectives are working to get Vining’s property back from a nearby pawn shop.
In roughly a 2-year span, less than 300 of almost 15k burglary of vehicle cases ended in arrest
According to APD data obtained by KXAN this month detailing burglary of vehicle cases from Oct. 1, 2022, to July 31, 2024, 269 out of 14,768 were cleared by an arrest.
Crimes classified as “burglary of vehicle” refer to items being stolen from vehicles, whereas “auto theft” refers to the vehicles themselves getting stolen.
“A park ranger came up to me and said ‘Hey, just to let you know, there have been a lot of break-ins here,'” Vining said about his day on the Greenbelt, “and I saw signs about break-ins. Honestly, probably a bad judgment call on my part, but I said OK I’ll take my precaution, I’ll lock it. I’ll go put my backpack back in the back of the van.”
Of the 39,907 items stolen from vehicles during this roughly 2-year time period:
- 316 were found or recovered
- 34,519 were lost or not returned
- 2,448 were damaged
A large portion of the damaged items were car parts, according to the data.
Park trail surveillance cameras
Last year, cameras went up at different parks across the city in an attempt to curb break-ins.
Police told KXAN the cameras at the Greenbelt where Vining’s van fell victim have been taken down.
When we asked APD about the cameras helping solve break-in issues, “it would be hard to tell,” investigators said. “Detectives say that burglaries were still occurring when these particular cameras were up and running. Some of the burglaries were caught on camera.”
The department said additional challenges to burglary of vehicle cases include it being rare to find hard evidence to generate leads.
