The Ironton Police Department is dealing with a rash of cars being broken into and are warning people not to leave any valuables in the vehicles.

Most of the break ins have occurred on S. Sixth Street. The first ones were in the 1500 block and a report on Wednesday was in the 400 block.

“The first three or four were centralized into one area of a couple block radius,” said Detective Brian Pauley. “But now they have ventured a little farther down.”

Detective William Borders said that there have been more break ins that people haven’t wanted to file reports on. So far, there are eight active reports.

Pauley said they have extra patrols in that area and aren’t sure if it is one person or a group.

“We have not been very successful getting videos. We only have one video,” he said. “We don’t know who it is, but we are putting in overtime trying to catch them.”

Pauley said he thinks the person is either on foot or using a bicycle and is just grabbing whatever they find, whether it is valuable or not.

“We had some tools taken, which around $1,000. Other vehicles have been ransacked and they’ve taken a wallet or phone chargers or other piddly stuff,” Pauley said.

“It just seems like they are grabbing the first thing they can find,” Borders said. 

Pauley reminded people to lock their cars and not to leave anything in it.

“Do not leave anything of any value in your car,” he said. “Don’t leave your wallet or your gun. You’d be surprised how many people leave guns in their cars and they get stolen. You can’t leave anything of any value in your car.”

“And invest in cameras if you can,” Borders said. “We’ve had around eight cases and so many of the cameras aren’t working or charged up. They don’t do any good if they aren’t working.”