Over the last year or two there has been an increase in car break-ins in Santa Clara, California particularly around the Rivermark and Mercado shopping centers. [relevant statistics have been requested but are not yet available.]

In order to ensure the safety of customers and their property, we would like to ask the Santa Clara police to:

1. Increase patrols or use similar mechanisms such as honeypot vehicles to catch the thieves and discourage others from using Santa Clara as an easy target.
2. Work with local merchants like AMC Theaters, and Walmart to put video surveillance where there isn't any to harden the target areas most affected and help capture information that will lead to catching the thieves by giving them pictures of individuals and vehicles involved. If the vehicles used in the thefts are stolen this may lead to solving both the car break-ins and the stolen cars. There may also be physical evidence such as fingerprints.
   
   Note Rivermark finally added cameras in late July 2019. 
3. Look into any state or federal grants that could be used to implement these programs.
4. Local merchants should consider private security to compliment the resources that the city can put on this effort.
5. Apply analytics to understand what times of day the crimes are happening to focus the resources and consider other possible contributors such as increased traffic from events at Levi Stadium. 
   
   Police should regularly share the results of their efforts with the merchants and the community to gauge the successes and future needs.

Giving in to this as "inevitable" makes Santa Clara an attractive target and may lead to other more serious crime.