Chief says Baltimore County detectives are working with other jurisdictions to solve attempted ATM thefts

By Jessica Albert

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    TOWSON, Maryland (WJZ) — WJZ spoke with Baltimore County Police Chief Melissa Hyatt to find out what the county is doing to stop the recent rash of attempted ATM thefts.

Hyatt said her detectives are working with detectives in other counties to make arrests in these attempted ATM thefts.

She told us the rate of these crimes has been going down.

A 7-Eleven in the 9400 block of Harford Road is the latest victim of the ongoing attempted ATM thefts in Baltimore County and Baltimore City.

Police said it happened around 4:30 a.m. Tuesday.

“That’s honestly something that you would think of in movies,” said Kayla Saunders of Baltimore County. “Somebody driving through a store for an ATM.”

Blocks away, there was another attempted ATM theft at a Walgreens on October 9th. Police said five suspects drove a van into the store.

“One of the things we’ve actually seen is although there is a lot of focus on these incidents, the thefts have actually dropped by more than 50 percent this month compared to last month,” Hyatt said.

There has been a 27% drop in these crimes compared to last year, she added.

WJZ asked her what her department is doing to prevent them from happening at all.

“Right now, we’re in the process of running a holiday deployment, which really focuses on a lot of these commercial establishments,” Hyatt said. “I truly think that some of the declines we’ve seen this month is because some of our patrol officers are very, very hyper focused. They continue to conduct these patrols.”

Community members are hoping an end to these crimes comes soon.

“It doesn’t worry me in terms of my own personal safety, but it worries me in terms of society and where we are and how the world is changing,” Neil Kehl said.

Hyatt also said her officers will continue to focus on preventing all crimes at all businesses as we head into the busy holiday shopping season.

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