Howard Beach battles car break-ins: 106th Pct.

Residents in Howard Beach have been keeping a closer eye on their cars after several reports of break-ins throughout the neighborhood, the 106^th Precinct said.

In many of the cases, cops said the cars were unsecured – meaning they either had visible property inside of them or were not properly locked. The precinct released surveillance footage of two suspects wanted in connection with some vehicles in Howard Beach earlier this week.

The precinct said the two suspects, described as white male Hispanics, broke into a car around 5:30 a.m. on June 14 and stole an Apple iPad among other things. They then fled west onto 163^rd Avenue, police said.

The 106^th Precinct asked that anyone with information on the thefts called Det. Patrick Roach at (718) 845-2261 or Det. Borough Queens South at (718) 520-9200.

Police reported eight larcenies from vehicles this month alone, happening randomly throughout the week. Each incident, the 106^th Precinct said, took place mostly around midnight.

But Jeanine Marcotrigiano, a lifelong resident near 91^st Street in Howard Beach, said she has seen at least five on her block alone over the last few months – including her own. She said someone had broken into her car sometime between 3 a.m. and 6 a.m. on June 14 and stolen loose change from her car.

Since the incident, Marcotrigiano said she has been realizing how rampant the break-ins have become in her part of Howard Beach.

“When my car was broken into, I went onto Facebook and told everyone to watch their cars,” she said. “But once I posted it, people started commenting, ‘my car too!’”

As far as her neighbors were concerned, Marcotrigiano said the thieves were taking anything from loose paperwork to unsecured golf clubs. And each time an officer would come down to her block to file another report, the Howard Beach native said she would try and make sense of the constant thefts.

With each new theft, she said her cries for more patrols grow louder.

“Crime is all over. We understand that. But we’re a very small community. All we ask for is more patrols,” she said. “Whenever I ask the precinct about this, they tell me they’re out there. But they’re not out there. It took them about 25 minutes to get here after my break-in and I called them in the early morning hours.”

Marcotrigiano said she had not seen a rash of break-ins like this throughout her four decades in Howard Beach and attributed some of the blame to Superstorm Sandy.

“Ever since Sandy, we have been more vulnerable to things like this,” she said. “Everybody is still rebuilding and these thieves are watching. We’re at our worst right now.”

106^th Precinct crime statistics showed grand larceny autos were up almost 48 percent in 2014 to date when compared to the same time last year, with 108 crimes compared to 73 in 2013. It was one of only two major crime categories to be on the rise when compared to last year’s numbers, along with rapes, which shot up from seven in 2013 to 12 this year to date.