South Nashville neighbors on high alert after several security concerns, including car burglaries

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (WKRN) — A South Nashville neighborhood is on high alert after several neighbors said thieves broke into their unlocked cars.

The concern has driven some people to make security changes and park their cars in their garage.

According to Metro Police's Data Dashboard , officers have received 20 suspicious person calls and 73 burglaries involving non-residences in the Glencliff neighborhood zip code (37211) this year.

As a result, some neighbors have added more security cameras.

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"I did go out and buy another camera and another flood light to really amp things up," said one South Nashville resident Katie Phillips.

"I installed a camera in the backyard to notify me if someone was creeping around in the backyard," explained Preston Fittro, another South Nashville resident. "But you know it's extra steps you don't want to take."

"Recently, we've had a lot, a lot of break-ins, car break-ins, and people wrestling around, and it has really escalated, it seems like, in the last couple of weeks and months," added Phillips.

On Wednesday, around 8 p.m., Fittro and his wife said they noticed a couple in their yard approaching their parked car.

"Looked like they were maybe attempting to get into the backyard to get into our vehicles," Fittro described. "We turned the lights on, and they kind of got scared off. But the next day, looking on Facebook community boards, it had looked like a few people had been broken into."

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Thursday morning, a neighbor down the street woke up to find her mom's unlocked car rummaged through and her mom's cell phone missing.

"It is obvious that they were just kind of walking around looking for easy targets because they did not go through my car, which was locked," Phillips said. "They didn't smash any windows or anything."

However, Phillips told News 2 she was determined to get her mom's phone back. By tracking it through the Find My iPhone app, she later confronted the alleged thieves.

"[I] Confronted them in my car, and I was like, I'm tracking you," Phillips explained. "'I know exactly where you have been, and the police know where you are, too'. And I think I spooked them because they threw the phone out."

"But they matched the description that several neighbors were posting clips of," Phillips added.

Then, on Saturday, the owner of a business in South Nashville said a customer's truck was stolen, but MNPD told News 2 that the case was not reported.

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"They were literally going up one street and down the next, going street to street, just working it like a grid," said Mike Baker, a South Nashville business owner.

MNPD could not confirm whether the incidents were related.

"They are notorious in our neighborhood, and that is even more frustrating is that they have been doing this for a while, and neighbors had been calling, reporting it, and nothing has happened to the point where they were able to keep going," Phillips concluded.