Car burglaries are one of the top crimes in the country, and every year insurance companies shell out over a billion dollars in losses.
Things are so bad in one part of Tulsa that one officer gets car break-in calls at least 400 times a month.
With the large amount of these crimes occurring, some residents have wondered why it takes so long for police to investigate their case.
The frustrating crime affects nearly 13 households daily, and when it happens to you, there's only one man to call to get the job done, literally.
"I'm it," Detective Brandon Bennett with the Tulsa Police Department said. "I'm where every case goes."
Bennett is the city's only officer assigned to investigating car break-ins.
"We are in the four-hundreds per month for me right now ," Bennett said.
In the past, those reports reached 600 a month, enough to certainly keep Detective Bennett busy and cause some exhaustion.
Although he wants to help all car break-in victims, it's simply not possible, especially with the shortage of police officers and priority cases.
"You need people that are going to respond to dangerous things," Bennett said.
And car burglaries just don't fit the bill. Although important, Tulsa police doesn't have the manpower or the funds to assign car break-ins to multiple detectives.
"We just don't have enough police officers," Bennett said. "You can't put a detective on a chair when you need police officers in a car. "
Car burglary detectives decreased from three to one in the past year, leaving all of the crimes in Detective Bennett's lap.
But, there is a way the public can help him out.
"If you find out you've got more property that's missing, go ahead and do that report online," Bennett said. "If you call me with a list, it's going to be very difficult for me to stop and enter those cases."
2 Works for You reached out to the City for comment to see if there was a plan for the officer shortage, however our request was redirected to the TPD's Chief Chuck Jordan.
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