More than a dozen trucks targeted in string of burglaries at Katy hotels

KATY, Texas – Police are looking into a string of vehicle burglaries that happened at the Best Western Plus Katy Tuesday night.

Chris Amaya, who is an air conditioning repairman, woke up Wednesday morning to find the driver's side window of his truck smashed in.

“I woke up in the morning, got to my truck and noticed my window was broken,” Amaya said. “When I was walking back to the front desk I noticed somebody else was complaining about it, and then someone else, and then before you know, it was 14 of us complaining.”

Amaya said Police told him people at other nearby hotels had similar complaints.

"When they got here they say the hotel next door had been hit and later on in the day, learned three other hotels in the Katy area were hit as well.”

“After that happened, I couldn’t sleep right at night because I was with a broken window in my truck, so I was worried that they were going to come back and start to get into my truck,” said Amaya. “I kept waking up and looking through the window and I noticed three or four times cops going around the parking lot and it made me feel a little better.”

Amaya, his wife and three kids have been living at the hotel for three months because their home flooded during Hurricane Harvey. He had to pay $195 to get his window fixed, but in a time when every penny counts, the unexpected cost added insult to injury.

“I’m just trying to make it each and every day like everybody else and we got these people doing things that they aren’t supposed to be doing, putting us down lower than what we already are,” said Amaya. “That would be my main question, why are you doing this? I mean, like, don’t you have a family? Don’t you have a heart?”

Amaya took pictures of other trucks the suspected burglars broke into.

Paul Pierce, who is staying at the Best Western for business, also woke up to find his truck window busted.

“It kind of hurts the heart, my truck's my baby,” sad Pierce.

They noticed the thieves seemed to only be targeting trucks.

“The police were saying that they were targeting trucks looking for weapons, guns, any sort of snatch-or-grab that they could, mainly weapons,” said Pierce.

Amaya said police were able to collect evidence from his truck window because the suspect cut himself on the glass.

There is believed to be hotel surveillance video that police may be looking into as well.

KPRC Channel 2 News put in a request to Katy Police for updates and waiting to hear back.