Responding to an apparent increase recently in pickpocketing, the Evanston Police Department issued an alert Thursday warning residents to be careful with their personal items.

Twelve residents have had their pockets picked in the last two weeks, EPD Cmdr. Tom Guenther said. One or more thieves may be working their way through the city, he said.

“These guys move around a lot,” Guenther said. “They come to Evanston and then maybe go to Skokie.”

Pickpockets often work in pairs, Guenther said. They employ a few staple tactics, including one in which one asks a shopper at a grocery store to reach an item on the shelf while the other reaches into the shopper’s pocket.

Many of the recent thefts have occurred at grocery stores, Guenther said.

To avoid having their pockets picked, residents should keep their wallets in zippered pockets or put rubber bands on their wallets to create friction when thieves try to remove them, the police alert stated. It also instructed residents not to check their pockets for their wallets, because that gives away the wallet’s location.

Though the popular image of a pickpocket is a “sleazy person lurking in dark doorways,” most pickpockets look like average people, according to the alert.

“Typically people unfortunately don’t even know they’re victims,” Guenther said.

– Rebecca Cohen