FARMINGTON HILLS, Mich. – A mother in Farmington Hills was shocked to discover what her Ring camera captured early Sunday morning. The footage revealed a car thief casually rummaging through her vehicle and her daughter’s, raising concerns among residents about safety in the neighborhood.
Nicole Smith received a Ring camera alert on her phone around 5 a.m. that morning.
“I heard vibrations on my phone, which usually means an animal or something around the camera,” she said. “But it kept going, and I’m like, okay, that’s not an animal, because usually they just pass by. I looked and literally saw a man in my daughter’s car.”
The video shows the man going through both vehicles, and Smith is confident that they were locked.
“My car is a walk-away lock, so as soon as I walk away from it, it locks and alerts me on my phone that it’s locked,” she explained. “So they were both locked.”
The suspect was wearing a camouflage jacket and a hat, carrying a backpack and a tennis racket bag, and was seen riding a bike around the neighborhood.
“He just casually rolled his bike into our driveway, parked it,” Smith recalled. “I’m like, well, thank you for not leaning it against my vehicle. But he parked it and just was casually strolling, opening the doors, getting in it, rummaging through stuff.”
Fortunately, Smith and her daughter did not have any valuables in their cars, so nothing was taken.
“But clearly, if we would have had anything—a cell phone, AirPods—he took Beats from the neighbors. Anything of value in your vehicle, he could have just taken it,” she said.
What troubles Smith the most is how the thief was able to gain access to so many vehicles so quickly.
“There was no alarm,” she noted. “All you would see was like the lights flash as if I normally walk up with my key and unlock my car. That’s all that happened. And he was able to just gain access to our vehicles.”
Farmington Hills police are investigating the incident. The main takeaway for residents is that no matter what neighborhood you live in, this could happen to you. Even if your vehicle is locked, it’s advisable to never keep valuables inside.
