Vandalism and theft crimes have Breaux Bridge law enforcement on high alert at all times, but Breaux Bridge police have specific strategies in their approach to stop these types of crimes.

BREAUX BRIDGE, La (KLFY)-- Vandalism and theft crimes have Breaux Bridge law enforcement on high alert at all times, but Breaux Bridge police have specific strategies in their approach to stop these types of crimes.

News 10 spoke with Police Chief Rollie Cantu who said that the department has noticed how prevalent vandalism crimes in the city have shown up this time of the year. He also explained how the department is doing what it can to stop the trend from continuing.

With a limited amount of recourses and a lot of areas to cover, Chief Cantu told News 10 that his department does what it can with crimes of vandalism and theft. He says it can be very difficult though.

"It kind of takes a toll on your officers because you have to try to accommodate for everybody," Cantu said. "When you are short-handed, that is hard."

When the department is able to follow up on complaints to the station, it can take a while for evidence to pinpoint what happened and who did it.

"You have to scan the neighborhood, talk to people, and just make sure you can find every little evidence you can find," Cantu said.

The department is able to catch criminals by noticing a pattern in the crimes and using that to its advantage.

"Most career criminals have a pattern," Cantu said. "You know when they are going to steal. You know where they are going to go with it. Every once in a while they get smart with it and change that pattern, but mostly they have the same pattern."

Cantu also said that he wants the public to know how difficult these crimes are to solve.

"I just hope the people can understand that a lot of times, crime against property is usually one of the hardest to solve."