There’s one simple thing you can do in two seconds that can keep from your car being vandalized.

Lock your car. That’s the word today from Capt. Jim Leavens, commander of the Brava Dristrict in Lehigh. Leavns works out of the Lehigh Acres Substation.

Most of the car burglaries we see come because people are not locking the doors when they get out of the car, he said.

“If people would lock their cars, we would have a lot less burglaries of cars in Lehigh,” Leavens said.

That advice was echoed also by Larry F. Gutridge, Florida crime prevention practitioner with the Lee County Sheriff’s Office – East District

The deputies have been responding to a rash of auto burglaries in Lehigh Acres. Items of various values have been lost. The primary reason is that the cars have been left UNLOCKED. Please take the extra two seconds to lock your car, Gutridge said.

Leavens and Gutridge would like to get the word out to the business community so local company’s customers can see it. They sometimes feel that they are only going to be out of their cars for “just a minute” and they don’t need to lock it. The bad guys need only seconds if the door is unlocked and valuable items are left in plain sight. If you see someone in the parking lot outside of your business “checking out” cars, call 477-1000 and let a deputy “check him out.”