23 auto break-ins reported at North Berkeley BART

Police are investigating dozens of auto burglaries at the North Berkeley BART station on Wednesday.

A total of 23 vehicles were broken into, a BART spokesman said in response to an inquiry from The Berkeley Scanner.

BART did not say when the crimes happened and has not responded to requests for more details.

But the Bart Fare Evaders X account heard BART Police radio traffic about the auto burglaries at about 12:30 p.m. Wednesday, indicating the break-ins may have happened that morning.

On Wednesday night, a reader told TBS that dozens of people "had their windows smashed and were gone through at NB BART this afternoon," adding: "Lots of unhappy people there."

She said most of the broken glass seemed to be in the lot near Delaware and Sacramento streets.

"Apparently the smashers had time to rifle through the cars, I can’t imagine why they weren’t caught," she added."

BART did say that BART police and the Berkeley Police Department are sharing information about what happened.

"No arrests have been made yet, but this is an active investigation," BART said.

Crime reports at the North Berkeley BART station are uncommon.

In the past six months, there have been two reports each of robbery, grand theft, auto burglary, vehicle tampering and vehicle theft.

Not counting the recent BART auto burglaries, car break-ins are up 18% in Berkeley this year compared to last year.

There were 157 auto break-ins reported this year in Berkeley through Feb. 20 compared to 133 in the same period in 2023.