It usually happens in less than a minute: Crook approaches vehicle. Crook shatters window, often with the porcelain from an everyday sparkplug. Crook quietly makes off with valuables in broad daylight. This event is known in police-speak as a car prowl and recent police statistics show the La Jolla area has more instances of this crime than any other neighborhood in San Diego. A report of all crimes by neighborhood between January and July shows that the police beat stretching from Turquoise Street to Torrey Pines State Park west of Interstate 5 had 268 instances of car prowling. Close behind La Jolla was University City, with 261 instances of car prowling, followed by Pacific Beach with 246. “The main reason it happens is because people use their vehicles as storage lockers,” said Alan Alvarez, a public information officer for the San Diego Police Department’s Northern Division. “Whatever is there is whatever they’re going to take.” Alvarez said it is common for people to leave their iPod connected to a stereo or GPS in sight. Other commonly reported stolen items are wallets and laptops. La Jolla’s high number of reported vehicle break-ins, in comparison to other neighborhoods, could be attributed to its sizable population or high number of visitors. However, La Jolla ranked much lower than other neighborhoods in other crime categories — 16th in aggravated assault and 46th in armed robbery, to name a couple. Lt. James Filley, who oversees the San Diego Police Department’s Northern Division, said education is extremely necessary to combat this crime because, unlike violent crimes, car prowling is highly preventable. “It’s a crime of opportunity,” Filley said. “Most are random.” He hasn’t noticed car prowls being perpetrated by an organized group, but that’s not to say people don’t go to particular neighborhoods to commit particular crimes, he said. Car-prowl hot spots include Kellogg Park, the La Jolla Shores parking lot on Camino del Oro and neighborhoods surrounding beaches. Filley said most break-ins happen during the day. Sometimes cars are left unlocked with valuables in plain view, Filley said, but more often beach-goers hide their keys in the sand or on top of their vehicle’s tire while a perpetrator watches. Rental cars are also susceptible to break-ins, he said, as they indicate travelers’ belongings might be inside. The porcelain from a spark plug — or any other material that’s harder than glass — is often pressed into the corner of the window, shattering it with hardly any noise. Sometimes, he said, professional car prowlers will monitor parking lots before committing their crimes. “There’s no prying stereos out of dashboards,” Filley said. “Those days are gone.” Last summer in Pacific Beach, he said, a surfer buried his car key in the sand before hitting the waves. A thief dug up the key, stole the man’s credit card from his wallet, returned the wallet to the car and reburied the key. When the thief attempted to use the credit card at a nearby CVS pharmacy, the CVS employee called the cops and the crook was apprehended. “The victim didn’t even know he had lost his card,” Filley said. “We located his car by the beach about the time he was coming out of the ocean.” Lorraine Schmalenberger, president of the La Jolla Shores Surfing Association, said safety has become a much more prevalent issue in recent years than when she was growing up in La Jolla during the 1960s and 1970s. Now a Clairemont resident, she said she’s been privy to a few instances of surfboards being stolen from the back of pick-up trucks, but parking access remains more of an issue than car prowling. She said she always locks her vehicle and uses a special key pocket in her wetsuit. “Around here, we know whose vehicle belongs to who,” Schmalenberger said. “If we see someone tampering with a vehicle, we have some safety in community.”