By Diana XinThe Daily Northwestern

Scott Aikin initially thought it was a joke.

He was walking home from lab Monday night when his roommate called and said his car had been broken into, a window smashed.

“It was kind of a shock,” said Aikin, a McCormick junior.

Aikin had parked his 1991 Honda Accord outside his house on the 1000 block of Garnett Place about 6:30 p.m. Sunday and had not checked on it since.

His roommate Rick Lichtas, a McCormick junior, found about 9 p.m. Monday that a rear passenger vent window had been broken, Aikin said.

“They ripped out my stereo from the dashboard,” Aikin said.

Deputy Chief Joseph Bellino of the Evanston Police Department said car thefts are prevalent throughout the city. Laptop computers and iPods are common targets.

Car radios are taken less often because their removal requires more work.

“We do get cars with the dashboards torn apart,” Bellino said. “It depends on how comfortable the burglar is and how much time they have. These guys have honed their skills, so it doesn’t take them that long.”

The items are often difficult to recover because they are usually sold, Bellino said. The burglars often trade in the items for money to support substance-abuse or drug habits, he said.

“Unless we’ve caught them in the act with the property, it usually just evaporates through being sold on the street for fast cash,” Bellino said.

Police try to monitor pawnshops for the stolen property. They often check transactions at the stores, which require identification before accepting any items, Bellino said.

More often, however, the stolen items are sold through word of mouth, Bellino said.

“Somebody knows someone who wants something. Someone knows someone who has it,” he said. “There’s a market for anything anywhere.”

The items are normally sold for only a small percentage of what they’re worth, he said, or they are sometimes traded for drugs or alcohol.

The most common car thefts happen with cars whose owners leave doors unlocked, Bellino said. Burglars find it easier to take their chances and try opening doors than to get caught and have to explain why they have a screwdriver with them at 2 a.m., Bellino said.

Screwdrivers are one of many pry tools used for opening car doors, Bellino said. Or the burglars simply break a car window.

Sometimes a burglar will go into a parking garage and try all the door handles, Bellino said.

“Here in Evanston, it’s more residential,” he said. “We do have parking structures, but it’s more targeted in densely populated residential areas. We’ve got blocks and blocks of condos where the parking lots can’t accommodate all the residents – they’re parked on the streets, bumper to bumper.”

Many NU students take care to lock their cars but don’t consider car thefts a real threat.

Whitney Siehl, a Weinberg sophomore, said she usually parks her car at Ryan Field, where she has golf practice.

“I try to keep it as close to lighted areas as possible,” Siehl said. “I would like it better if there were more areas to park around the dorms because I could watch my car more.”

Lichtas, Aikin’s roommate, said he hadn’t worried about anyone breaking into his car before.

“I was more worried about the car getting vandalized,” he said. Lichtas’ car was parked beside Aikin’s but had a factory-installed radio.

Aikin’s stereo was bought from Best Buy, and worth about $100, he said.

Their parking spots were partially blocked by large bushes, Aikin said, making it hard to see from their house.

The roommates plan to ask their landlord to remove the bushes, Aikin said. Aikin also has to talk to his insurance company and his dealership.

“That’s the main thing that sucks,” Aikin said. “It’s just time I didn’t want to spend on it, especially with midterms.”

Reach Diana Xin at [email protected].