BEAUMONT, Texas — "People in this day in age need to get in the mindset of 'what I would do if I was the criminal?'" said Beaumont Police Officer Haley Morrow.
Police want to communicate an important message to those in the community: be vigilant.
Morrow says thieves love to prey on people who are leaving banks and ATMs.
"Suspects look for easy victims, they look for easy targets. When people leave valuables and large amount of money inside a vehicle it makes it an easy target," Morrow said.
Officers call the crime 'jugging.'
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It's become common enough in Southeast Texas that Beaumont Police have assigned a crime analyst to look into all jugging incidents across the city.
"We get reports in and they analysis that data. They look at it to see if there are any trends, particular patterns or MOs (modus operandi) that suspects are using. Try to plot that and see if we can prevent that from happening," Morrow said.
Using special analysis, Beaumont Police successfully stopped two suspects in the act of jugging in January 2019.
They hope to continue that trend.
"We would prefer to not to get the call after the fact. Our officers, they want to apprehend these suspects before it happens. We want to protect victims before they have to call us," Morrow said.