HOUSTON – Houston Police Department commanders and investigators announced during a press conference Friday the arrest of a serial burglar who targeted at least 48 businesses in southwest Houston.
Police said Jose Ledzma-Sierra has been charged in three incidents of burglary of a building. Police said he could be tied to a total of 48 burglary cases in southwest Houston, either through surveillance video or modus operandi. Police said Ledzma-Sierra would stake out a business he wanted to break into. Police said he would ride his bike around and once the business was empty, he would throw a rock through the front window.
If police showed up, he’d ride away; if no one showed up, he would go in, investigators said.
Ledzma-Sierra has two prior burglary arrests, police said.
The investigation
Police said the investigation into the robberies began in October when investigators noticed many of the burglaries were connected: Testing the alarm system to see if the police would show up by throwing a rock through the window.
Police said there is something very simple businesses can do to prevent this.
“If you have an alarm, make sure you have an alarm permit. Make sure that you activate your alarm once you do leave the premises because there have been times we actually caught the individual as soon as the alarm went off,” said HPD Commander Yasa Bashir.
Police also suggested for businesses to empty the cash register when closing and leave it open. Police said it will hopefully deter someone from breaking in and at least save businesses the cost of repairing their cash registers if someone does break in.