SAN ANTONIO – It’s one thing to have your car broken into, but it’s quite another to have your son robbed of his birthday present from grandma.
A father says crime is so rampant along Henderson Pass near 281 and 1604 that both his car and apartment have been burglarized. Plus, his son’s birthday money was stolen from his P.O. box.
News 4 WOAI checked the crime numbers on the 16100 block of Henderson Pass, where this man lives. In the past two months there have been three home break-ins, a strong-arm robbery, four assaults and three car break-ins on that one block alone.
Smash-and-grabs, stolen cars and front-doors getting kicked in: that’s how dozens of people we spoke with described the crimes that have happened just the past few weeks inside the apartment complexes along Henderson Pass.
The crimes are now spilling over into the adjacent neighborhood streets.
"We lock up tighter than we used to,” homeowner Barbara Stephens says. "It's just a good neighborhood. It really is."
But she’s worried about gunshots that wake her up at night, coming from the woods that separate her house from apartments.
"We don't know where the bullets are going to travel,” Stephens says. "Usually it's too late for the police to do anything. They have come out and never found anything."
Yet the place you might expect to be a target – the YMCA, with the biggest open parking lot around, reports no nuisance crimes.
"I think it's all about looking out for one another, using common sense,” YMCA manager Philip Ott says.
He says employees patrol the lot and members are watching out for each other.
"We even had a member call us the other day and tell us she found a car door was left open and no one was around the car and shut the door,” Ott says.
It was a vigilant action to lock out potential thieves.
Still, neighbor after neighbor told News 4 they’ve taken extreme measures to protect their property: everything from investing in alarm systems to keeping a German Shepherd in the front yard to scare away strangers.
