The recent spike in summer temperatures has brought with it a rise in the number of thefts and car prowls in Kirkland.

According to data provided by the Kirkland Police Department, during a two-week period in June there were 63 thefts, 58 vehicle prowls and 16 car thefts.

KPD Spokesperson Lt. Mike Murray said the sudden uptick in prowls and thefts has had the department, along with other departments on the Eastside, putting additional resources toward preventing future thefts while apprehending suspects.

“We’re getting nailed,” he said. “These car prowls are just crazy. Everyone’s seeing them… we’re all kind of trying to fight the same battle.”

While Murray attributed the increased thefts with the time of the year and the weather, he also said that the jump could be due to new groups of thieves and prowlers entering the Eastside, as Kirkland is not the only city to suffer from the problem. According to Murray, the perpetrators are mostly drug addicts looking to get their daily fix.

“They get what they can to pawn stuff and get a few bucks,” he said. “A lot of time you don’t have to pawn it. With craigslist, they sell valuables online.”

Heroin use has been on the rise in King County in recent years. According to a report on drug trends from the University of Washington’s Alcohol and Drug Abuse Institute, heroin-involved deaths totaled 156 in 2014, “their highest number since at least 1997 and a substantial increase since the lowest number recorded, 49, in 2009.”

On top of that, Washington metropolitan areas made the national top 10 list for highest vehicle theft rates, according to the National Insurance Crime Bureau’s (NICB) recent annual Hot Spots Report. The Seattle-Tacoma-Bellevue area jumped from 13th place in 2013 to eighth place, with an 11.8 percent increase in auto thefts and 20,268 vehicles stolen in 2014.

For the addicts, Murray said, Kirkland’s relatively affluent residential population offers them greater opportunities for higher priced merchandise, especially when the items are left in plain sight inside vehicles.

“We’re seeing a big spike in heroin use,” Murray said. “They found an area where people, even more so than in the past, are just leaving stuff in their car and making it easy… They’re finding good valuables in these vehicles, because almost all the cars are getting a window broken and its always a backpack or satchel, a laptop and cellphone. They’re getting good stuff. And that is half the problem, they’ve really found a good area where people are just leaving stuff in their car so much they just keep coming back.”

At the moment Kirkland does not have a Pro-Act Team, which conducts investigations against repeat offenders. The team was dissolved in order to provide more patrol officers for the 2011 annexation, though Murray said they have one officer assigned to Bellevue’s team to work on cases that might involve suspects from Kirkland cases.

“By us having an officer for a month at a time it gives us the chance to work the Kirkland case and arrest some of the Kirkland folks,” he said. “Hopefully we’ll be able to keep doing that.”

So far the KPD has met with some success, having caught several car prowlers several weeks ago. According to Murray, two were arrested during a traffic stop, where officers discovered they had  stolen property in their car. But even then, he said, the arrests don’t necessarily put a halt to the thefts.

“Even though you arrest them, you book them, but they’re out quick,” he said. “If not, they’re out within a couple of days with a court date. They’ve got to get their drug fix, so they go back to prowling.”

Another issue for KPD is that the prowls and thefts tend to occur near Interstate 405, they are not confined to a single neighborhood.

“It’s everywhere,” Murray said. “We try to figure it out to see if there’s a pattern… our maps are just showing everywhere.”

For officers, it’s also difficult to catch thieves and prowlers in the act, who can break into several cars within a few minutes and then leave the area. Unless there are witnesses, Murray said it is difficult to pin suspects on a theft unless they are caught with the stolen property.

“Fortunately, we do get fingerprints and can do a case like that,” Murray said. “Sometimes a neighbor saw the person and we get on it and K9 track and locate them. It’s a difficult crime to solve and to roll up on when it’s occurring because it happens so fast.”

One way car owners can protect their valuables is by placing them in the trunk or simply keeping them out of sight.

“If you’re walking down a street and peeking in cars and see nothing in a car, you’re just gonna walk past them because the next two will have a laptop or cellphone,” he said. “They (drivers) leave wallets and checkbooks, then you have the ID theft, especially if you get credit cards. They’ll head right to places to start buying stuff.”