JACKSON, Mich. — A man is searching for the person or persons responsible for breaking into his car, and he has the footage to prove it.
When John Hays went to take out his trash on Sunday night, he noticed his door on his Jeep was open. That's when he decided to check his at home security footage and saw what happened.
"Opens the door, gets in, looks around, sees there's a safe in there and ends up taking a very small amount of money and ends up leaving," he said.
Hays says it happened just before 9:00 Sunday night. In the video, you can see the dark-colored car drive past the driveway, park and open the door of Hays' car. The person then is seen in the car going through belongings and takes off in the same direction.
"I was furious. I live in a nice part of town, I live off of a nice road. You don't think this would happen to you and then you see it and you're just furious."
The video has racked up more than 1,000 views and almost 300 shares on Facebook. Hays said he posted the video of the break-in to help police catch the thief.
"I think law enforcement has always been about community policing. I know my neighborhood and I see these cars driving around there, I figured I'd get the image out there and someone will ID them. Law enforcement is obviously doing their job, but we're also really good at what we do as well," Hays said. Hays is the president of Criminal Justice Solutions.
Hays says it doesn't matter how much the thief stole, he's mad they came onto his property in the first place. His goal was to simply help police catch them.
"You're coming into my area, you're going through my stuff, and I have no idea who you are. I understand that people are down on their luck, but stealing from others when there are a lot of people out there to help you is just ridiculous," he said.
Since posting the video, dozens of others have commented saying the may have been affected by the same person or persons. News 10 spoke with another woman affected who told said her mother's car was rummaged through around the same time.
Hays said he filed a report about the incident with the Jackson County Sheriff's Office, which is investigating the matter. If you have any information, contact them at (517) 768-7900.
