Police Remind You To Mark Your Property

DESERT HOT SPRINGS – Someone broke into Bonnie Bogharian’s neighbors house two months ago and stole their TV.

And Bonnie does not want this to be her.

So she’s writing her name on nearly all her valuables.

“That’s what I’m doing with everything in there,” says Bogharian. “Plus taking pictures of the furniture and everything else just because I had a lot of people working on my house to and so you never know who has the key.”

Police say Bonnie’s doing the right thing.

It’s the least someone can do to help officers catch thieves.

“A lot of times we have no idea where it came from. If you can put your drivers license number on there and can engrave it on there we can take it we can run the drivers license number on there and we can find you just like that,” says Sgt Dan Bressler with the Desert Hot Springs Police Department.

Christine Krason, visiting the Coachella Valley, marks her property and it paid off when thieves struck.

“Just a couple of items were taken from the house and the police were able to recover it through the local pawn shop when they had run it through the serial number,” says Krason.

You can also register your gadget’s serial numbers online, or get a computer program to track your stolen computers.

Or you can go to the web and try and find them yourself.

Police have had success catching some thieves this week thanks to some motivated victims.

On Monday, a Desert Hot Springs man found his stolen stereo face-plate on craigslist.

Police arrested the alleged seller, 18 year-old Darius Griffin.

Also on Monday, police arrested John Kang for trying to sell 8 sets of golf clubs stolen from Desert Springs Marriott Villas.

But as victims get smarter so do the thieves.

“It’s always a cat and mouse,” says Sgt. Bressler. “Once we figure something out them they figure it out to do it differently and we catch up and they do it differently.”

Police say it’s a game you can’t afford to lose.