A gift for criminals

LAKELAND - You're not he only one this holiday season who is shopping until they drop. Crooks are on the look out for great deals too. They're looking to steal cars and whatever is in them. Unfortunately, many people are making it easy for them.

FOX 13's Polk County crew went with Lakeland Police Officer Adrian Rodriguez to the parking lot of a local mall recently.

Within minutes of arriving, Rodriguez found three vehicles that were unlocked, one of them a van.

When Ursula Colter returned from shopping, we asked, "Why leave the van unlocked?"

"I was kinda in a rush and didn't think about it," she said.

A man who parked his unlocked F-150 a few spots away made a second mistake. He left the keys in it.

Officer Rodriguez started it up to show us how easy it would be to steal.

"With the economy bad right now, it's a forty thousand dollar Christmas present, at somebody else's expense," he said.