Westlake Police captain believes string of home burglaries connected to release of prisoners due to COVID-19

WESTLAKE, Ohio (WOIO) - Since 2021 began, Westlake Police Captain Gerald Vogel said there have been had about eight residential burglaries in the city.

“We’ve talked to other departments in the area; other cities they also have had problems with some burglaries,” said Vogel.

Five of those have happened in the last week, and most of them happened on the west end of the city. Streets include Lexington Court, Prince Charles, Inverness Circle, Forest Lake Drive, and Royal Woods Place.

No one was home during these burglaries.

“How they’re determining that I don’t know if they’re knocking on doors or if they’re just watching for someone to leaves and then hitting it,” he said.

Vogel said the crooks have been breaking windows or kicking in doors to get inside the home. He does not have any suspect descriptions.

Cuyahoga County released some non-violent inmates from the county jail last march to control a COVID-19 outbreak. In December, the county started taking similar steps to slow the spread of the virus.

“Definitely, we believe it probably could be related,” Vogel said. “We started looking through people who we’ve arrested in the past for burglaries trying to make some connections and generate leads for ourselves and a number of people who we’ve arrested in the past for burglaries are out many of them because of the COVID releases.”

Vogel said he understands people’s health, but his focus is keeping the crime out of Westlake.

“As the wheels of justice have slowed, we do believe that there is more people on the street that are gonna take advantage of criminal activity,” the captain said.

Westlake police have not arrested anyone for these burglaries.

Vogel is encouraging people to call the police if they see anything suspicious.

19 News reached out to the Cuyahoga County prosecutor’s office. They said they are not aware of any recommitting offenders.

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