Car dealerships around Anchorage have been hit with a string of burglaries this month, according to managers at those dealerships and reports from Anchorage police.
Three Lithia dealerships, Dependable Used Cars, Kendall Toyota, and another Kendall location in the Ship Creek area have all had burglaries in September, as recently as Wednesday morning. More than one of the burglaries involved a suspect or suspects using vehicles to drive through fences or parking lot gates before taking cars, police and managers said.
Whether the incidents are connected is under investigation, said Anchorage Police Department spokeswoman Renee Oistad.
Footage showed two men entering the Lithia Kia dealership on the Old Seward Highway at about 3:30 a.m. Sept. 16, according to a police statement. The men stole keys to several cars, as well as a laptop, a cash drawer, tools and a jacket. They also used a customer's car to ram a fence and then steal two cars on the lot that belonged to customers, police said.
Eric Connick, a general manager there, said one of those cars was recovered Tuesday.
"They're very, very bold," said Connick, who added that he's heard of similar car dealership burglaries happening in Anchorage five or six times in the past few weeks. "They just don't care. I've never heard of anything like it."
[Has SB 91 affected crime rates? Anchorage police say it's not clear]
Six vehicles were stolen from Dependable Used Cars on the Old Seward Highway on Sept. 23, police said. All but one of those have been recovered, according to police.
There were two burglaries at the Lithia Chrysler Jeep Dodge Ram of South Anchorage dealership recently, a manager there said. One happened on Sept. 9 and one on Sept. 13, according to police. In the first, police said, a suspect "forced open a door to the business and stole several vehicle keys" and then used a Jeep to break through a parking lot barrier.
Then, police said, the suspect stole a customer's Dodge Charger from the parking lot. That car was found Sept. 12 when it was set on fire at a church at Eureka Street and West 34th Avenue, police said.
In the second burglary at that Lithia location, police said, suspects stole a GMC pickup and a Chrysler sedan. The truck was found Sept. 14, according to police, and the Chrysler was found damaged and unoccupied a few days later at East 11th Avenue and Latouche Street. Police said it had been the "suspect vehicle" in a hit-and-run collision at Sixth Avenue and Karluk Street.
"It looks like they snuck in from the back of the facility," said Troy Jarvis, general manager at that Lithia dealership. In the first burglary, he said, a person took keys to cars that were being worked on, broke into a cashier till with a crowbar and took cash from inside, before going outside to take the Charger.
Jarvis said the business has increased security there since.
[Anchorage moves to toughen joyriding laws as car thefts spike]
In a burglary at a Lithia Hyundai dealership on Sept. 21, a Chrysler sedan and other items were taken, police said.
Early Wednesday morning, there was also a burglary at Kendall Toyota on Old Seward Highway, police said. Tony Vaillancourt, a general manager there, said "a bunch" of keys to rental cars were taken, and the company was able to identify which cars those were and disable them. No cars had been stolen, as far as he knew.
"I've worked here for 17 years and it's the first time I've ever had the dealership broken into," he said. An on-site security worker saw two people, Vaillancourt said.
Another burglary took place at a Kendall inspection location at 110 N. Wrangell St. early Tuesday morning. Just after 3 a.m., police received a report of a vehicle that drove through a fence there, and multiple cars and car keys were taken, according to a police report.
Asked how unusual the string of dealership burglaries might be, Oistad, with the police department, didn't give details.
"Because these are active investigations, we are not releasing any further information," she said in an email. "This type of situation has happened before. … I do not have the dates for you but I can tell you that it has happened."