Park the Camry, hide the CDs, take the cell phone. Don't leave the laptop on the back seat.

        Still a good plan to thwart thieves, Cincinnati police say, but with one caveat: Thieves are becoming less choosy. Don't leave anything in sight. Nothing.

        In fact, don't even leave anything in the trunk.

        Greater Cincinnati's most common crime — theft from vehicles — continues to nag at frustrated officers who spend hours trying to track prolific thieves.

HOT SPOTS FOR CAR BREAK-INS

Cincinnati's central business district and riverfront area remain the spots where cars are broken into most often — 550 times in 2000. Overall, car break-ins were down slightly from 1999 to 2000. Neighborhoods that took a pounding in 2000:   Bond Hill: 112 (27% increase)   Camp Washington: 79 (41%)   Evanston: 114 (30%)   Northside: 212 (18%)   Over-the-Rhine: 400 (4%)   Pendleton: 126 (83%)   Sedamsville: 25 (108%)   South Fairmount: 102 (73%)

        Increased attention to the problem in the most problematic city neighborhood — Over-the-Rhine — has helped whittle the numbers there and contribute to an overall decline in the crime city-wide.

        But even whittled, break-ins still happen at the rate of about three a day in Over-the-Rhine alone, particularly around the popular Main Street bar district. Police say that's only the fraction that get reported.

        Some other neighborhoods where police focus has been less intense are struggling with mounting numbers: Pendleton, with huge increases the past five months of last year; South Fairmount, up 73 percent to 102 break-ins last year; Northside, Bond Hill, Evanston, Sedamsville and North Fairmount.

        Annual loss estimate, not including all the broken car windows: more than $2.5 million to Greater Cincinnatians.

        Samantha Jones can relate.

        The 28-year-old English teacher from Hyde Park ended an evening downtown with friends three weeks ago by finding a brick through the driver's side

        window of her 6-month-old Mazda Protege.

        Missing: sweat pants with about $40 in a pocket.

        “I was so upset,” Ms. Jones said. “It was just very annoying and traumatic. Why do you break into somebody's car for sweat pants? Who wants sweat pants?”

Anything they can sell

        Car thieves want anything they can sell. And they can sell pretty much anything.

ANTI-THEFT TIPS

Cincinnati police Detective Pat Galligan gives these tips:   • Leave nothing in sight in the car. Not even coins.   • Don't trust that items are safe in the trunk. Thieves know which cars have inside trunk releases.   • Activate password locks on cell phones and computer equipment.   • Label everything. Slip a business card in your CD case. Write your name on your CDs; engrave it on tools. Write your name on a small piece of paper and tape it under your cellular phone battery.   Labeling helps officers question whether an item is stolen and gives them probable cause to take it from a suspected thief. Many stolen items go unreturned because police cannot trace the owners.

        “No, they don't just want your stereo anymore,” said Cincinnati Police Officer Joe Milek. “Now it's just smash-and-grab.”

        Officer Brett Gleckler, who sees a lot of break-ins around the University of Cincinnati campus, bluntly explains the finances: Two stolen CDs, resold for $5 apiece, get the thief a rock of crack.

        “People leave whole boxes of CDs in their cars,” he said. Thieves “can take that down to the store and just run back to the corner to get their crack.”

        But it isn't even always that complicated, Detective Pat Galligan said: “They'll break into your car for the 75 cents in the ashtray.”

        Tristate glass repairers have noticed that, too.

        Tom Patterson, district manager of operations for Triumph Auto Glass, said his customers have had pictures and stuffed animals stolen.

        Terry Cotto, manager of Premier Auto Glass, said he has heard of people stealing quarters, even bags that turned out to be empty.

        “It's a nuisance,” said Capt. Vince Demasi, Cincinnati District 1 commander. “And it really leaves a bad taste in your mouth if you're coming downtown and you find your car window smashed and your stuff taken.”

Overall decline

        Ms. Jones parked her car on Clay Street in Over-the-Rhine, an area where police have focused more attention on the problem lately.

        They say a federal grant, overtime patrols and undercover work contributed to a decline in this kind of theft reported in District 1, from 1,649 in 1999 to 1,366 last year — a 17 percent reduction.

        That contributed to the city's overall decline in its most popular crime. Overall, it was reported 6,509 times in 1999, compared with 5,411 in 2000, a drop of 17 percent.

        “It's all over,” Officer Gleckler said. “It's a citywide problem.”

        He learned first-hand over the holidays that it's not just a Cincinnati problem, either. Somebody broke into his car outside a Toledo mall and stole a child car seat.

        The National Property Recovery Association holds conferences on how to crack down on car break-ins.

Simple tool

        Thieves' motives run the gamut, from drugs to just plain vandalism. Officers know many of them, Detective Galligan said, from multiple arrests and from their histories.

        Some steal only certain things, he said, the things they know they can sell.

        They watched one man, during surveillance, pass up repeated cars until he found one with women's clothes inside.

        Their common break-in tool: a piece of a broken spark plug. The porcelain shatters the window — almost silently — when thieves flick it at their target.

        Detective Galligan helped lobby to get porcelain pieces considered “criminal tools,” possession of which is a crime. He's lobbying now to try to persuade more judges to view possession of the pieces as a felony version of the crime in cases where the thief used the pieces to steal $500 or more worth of items.

        “Because there's absolutely no good reason,” he said, “to have broken spark-plug chips in your pocket.”

        District 1's Capt. Demasi says his officers are planning another sting operation like one they orchestrated last summer. During it, officers used decoy cars to catch thieves and bought stolen merchandise — about $100,000 worth for $4,000, Detective Galligan said.

        Capt. Demasi hopes to continue keeping the pressure on in his area.

        Officers have applied for another grant, he said, and continue to add to the computer database of fingerprints started with help from the first pot of money.

        All District 1 patrol officers now carry fingerprint kits in their cars and are encouraged to try to get even partial prints off as many vandalized cars as possible.

        The prints are then compared with a growing file of prints from known criminals, helping investigators identify thieves and sometimes build multiple-offense cases against people.

        That helps, Detective Galligan said, because keeping convicted break-in thieves behind bars is difficult. They often plead guilty, he said, and get released after serving overnight in jail.

        So the more cases they can pile on, the more possibility of keeping that thief off the streets for at least a few nights.

        Thefts — five of them in about seven months — finally pushed former Over-the-Rhine resident Tony Boersma out of the neighborhood. Thieves stole a backpack, his car stereo, an empty pizza box. The 24-year-old engineer moved to Norwood, where his car has never been vandalized.

        “After awhile, you just get sick of it,” he said. “I just gave up.”

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