GREENFIELD — Several residents of Pond Street, Abbott Street and Linden Avenue discovered on Friday and Saturday mornings that someone had broken into their vehicles overnight, making off with items ranging from skis to marijuana.
Six separate vehicles on Pond Street were broken into sometime late Thursday night or early Friday morning, police logs indicate, with the first report of theft coming in at 7:28 a.m. Another break-in was reported on Abbott Street, the next street over.
A few vehicle owners noticed nothing stolen. However, two grams of marijuana, two smoking pipes and a wallet was missing from one vehicle. Another report at 11:22 a.m. discovered a pocket knife, some change and a pair of reading/driving glasses were stolen from a Jeep Grand Cherokee, and a Mac laptop was stolen from a Chevrolet S10, according to police logs.
The vehicle break-ins continued into Saturday morning, with two pairs of skis being stolen from the ski carrier on top of a vehicle on Linden Avenue. Police logs indicate both were Rossignol brand skis; one white-colored set with black lettering for adults, and one cream-colored set with black lettering for teenagers.
Greenfield Police Chief Robert Haigh Jr. was unsure if the vehicle break-ins were all connected, but said “typically when we get something like that in the same general area, we start thinking it’s the same individual or multiple individuals.” The vehicle break-ins were within a half-mile of each other.
Haigh said that because vehicle theft is “usually just an opportunity thing,” whereby the culprits target unlocked vehicles, having residents lock their doors would be to their — and to the police’s — benefit.
“If you pull a handle and it opens, it’s an easy opportunity,” Haigh said, noting that thieves often won’t go through the trouble of physically breaking in or smashing windows. Most of the Friday and Saturday log entries indicated the involved vehicles had been unlocked.
“We urge people: please lock your doors,” Haigh continued. “You may feel like you’re on a side street or like you live out of the way, but you need to help us out by locking your doors.”