By Eleni Himaras
reporter@ltview.com
If you’ve been shopping at the Hill Country Galleria in the last week, you may have found that someone looking for valuables had scoped out your car. Luckily, it was probably a Bee Cave Police Officer.

The Bee Cave Police Department followed in Austin’s footsteps and has been leaving friendly reminders under the windshield wipers of cars. They alert you that they have looked at your car and that you may have left valuables in plain sight.
“We have a lot of retail here and it’s the holiday season and we wanted to remind folks that they don’t need to become a victim if they’ll just do some simple things to reduce the likelihood,” Bee Cave Police Chief Rusty Pancoast said.
The department printed up the flyers and gave some to each officer to put out at their convenience. Pancoast said Bee Cave has not seen a lot of car break-ins and that he’d like to keep it that way.
“We try to be proactive to deter it rather than investigate it after the fact,” he said.
The flyers alert people that their car has been viewed by a police officer. There is a checklist of items for a police officer to mark that they can plainly see in the car, and also a box saying. “Nothing Observed. Great Job!”
“You’ll see a lot of packages – shopping packages – they’ll buy something and leave it in the car while they go somewhere else. We’ve seen everything from laptops to purses, electronics – even checks,” Pancoast said.
Officers will continue to disseminate the flyers through about the first week of January, he said.
While they haven’t had much response from drivers who’ve found the flyers, all of the businesses they’ve spoken with think it’s a great idea.
To keep from being a victim, Pancoast said, “They should make sure that all their valuables are secured and out of sight so it doesn’t tempt burglars walking up and down looking for an easy target”