Over the past 24 months, Miami Lakes has spent a total of $120,436 on police overtime for special details to prevent auto thefts and burglaries.
Town Manager Edward Pidermann said at the April 15 council meeting that the special details are working.
Stolen vehicle cases fell 52%, from 23 in the first quarter of 2024 to 11 in the first three months of 2025, Miami-Dade Sheriff’s Maj. Jose Gonzalez told the council.
Data compiled by the sheriff’s office that tracks incidents in nine categories of felony crimes shows a 67% decrease in the first three months of 2025, compared to the first three months of 2024.
Pidermann praised Gonzalez and the deputies who protect the town.
“The last couple of years we’ve had some issues,” Pidermann said. “They buckled up and they attacked those issues with the overnight auto theft details, with more enforcement, with integrating technology with the [license plate reader system]. The work his men and women have done is incredible ... And the efforts are to be commended.”
Those felony crime categories the agency tracks to assemble the data are homicide, forcible sex crimes, robberies, larcenies, auto thefts, burglaries of businesses or homes, aggravated assault and aggravated battery.
There were no incidents in six categories - homicide, forcible sex crimes, domestic robbery, commercial burglary, aggravated assault and aggravated battery - in the first quarter of 2025.
Gonzalez reported two robberies, six larcenies and one residential burglary in that period.
“We continue with the minimum staffing during the midnights [shifts], and the enhanced activities of a police presence and undercover surveillance details which has obviously shown to be very fruitful, with the low crime that we are experiencing,” Gonzalez said.
Larcenies were down 78%, with six incidents in the first quarter this year compared to 27 in the first quarter of 2024, he said.
The report does not list all types of crimes. A category not included: vehicle burglaries, which also declined.
There were 35 vehicle break-ins in the first quarter of 2025, an 8% drop compared to incidents in the first three months last year, the agency said.
Gonzalez’s report described a case where ammunition for a Glock handgun was reported stolen from a car in driveway. In another case, a pocketknife, passport and prescription pills were taken from an unlocked car parked at a restaurant, police said.
They are two of three vehicle burglary cases in March when detectives arrested three suspects, two of them minors and one of whom had prior arrests on suspicion of burglarizing vehicles, the agency said.
“Our detectives did some great police work, great investigative work,” Gonzalez said. “By mid-April, we’ve only had one vehicle break-in the whole Town of Miami Lakes.”
Gonzalez also reported on traffic tickets.
“We conducted 87 hours of traffic enforcement during the month of March, and we wrote 341 citations and 192 warnings,” he said.
Pidermann told The Miami Laker the LPRs that alert deputies to suspicious or stolen cars and can track a suspect within municipal borders have contributed to law enforcement efforts.
“A couple of town entrances remain to get LPR cameras,” Pidermann said.
LPRs have been funded by public safety impact fees paid by developers. The town is awaiting word on federal funding to complete the camera network.