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Another Lake Highlands thief has been caught on camera.

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Last week, one of my Woodbridge neighbors spotted, via his surveillance cam, a guy trying to open car doors along our street, for a second time. No word on police actually catching the folks caught on camera, though the evidence has been used to bring more police patrol to the neighborhoods that these actual and aspiring thieves are casing.

In this week’s case of opportunistic thief caught on camera, a Lake Highlands women tells NBC5 she left her purse in the car and left her car unlocked — this guy must have thought it was Christmas. (She obviously is not a regular reader of the Advocate True Crime section, where just about every month a police officer is quoted saying, “Take, Lock, Hide. Take, Lock, Hide. Take, Lock, Hide.” Every. Month.) Someone in the neighborhood caught the thief on camera; he appears to be carrying the aforementioned woman’s purse and attempting to get into other cars in the same alley.

I cannot derive a description of the man based on the black-and-white, low-resolution video — other than that he is skinny and wearing a baseball cap — but you can see it for yourself here.

I suppose it goes without saying that leaving valuables in an unlocked car is ridiculous, but we are all busy and forget our heads sometimes. What she did do right: reported the crime. Sometimes victims do not report car break-ins or other petty crimes because, 1: They believe there is zero chance police will catch the criminal or get the property back (it’s true that there is only the slimmest chance) and/or, 2: They are embarrassed because they left their door unlocked or did something otherwise irresponsible to invite the break-in.

My neighborhood crime-watch chair recently reminded us how important it is to report any criminal activity. I’ll paraphrase what he wrote to us: Not filing a police report does the neighborhood a tremendous disservice. Police allocate resources based on criminal activity, and they can’t fix what they don’t know about.