MEMPHIS, Tenn. — A Memphis pastor who dedicates much of his service to helping people caught up in crime became a victim of a crime himself Wednesday.
Pastor Ricky Floyd found his car ransacked early Wednesday morning.
He's one of thousands of car crime victims in a year when the number of cars stolen has more than doubled from last year to more than 40 vehicles a day.
“I'm in downtown Memphis now in a gated community, I used to, I've been here about 11 years,” Ricky Floyd said. “And I've probably had more break-ins in one year than I did in eleven years in the Raleigh-Frayser area."
Floyd's truck joins the nearly 8,000 cars stolen and thousands more that have been broken into this year.
“I got up this morning to go the gym at about 5 am and noticed as soon as I got into my car that there were just items, ransacked, glove compartment, all of that thrown everywhere over the vehicle,” Floyd said.
Thieves have hit cars in every corner of the city and pastor Floyd says he's getting tired of filing police reports.
“I really don't see any benefit in that,” Floyd said. “They didn't take anything. I've been filing police reports for years. They're not going to increase security over here." “They didn't have to bust out any windows. They went in quickly, get in and out quickly, I think the prime thing they were looking for was guns."
But the pastor doesn't put all the blame at the feet of the police. He says the problem can only be solved collectively.
“We've got to put some healthy measures in place to bring healing to our community,” Floyd said.
ABC24 did reach out to MPD asking them about their efforts to combat car thefts and break-ins this summer. MPD told ABC24 they told us the department says “uniform patrol is conducting increased directed patrols at apartments, restaurants, and retail parking lots to curtail car break-ins and auto thefts.” They also credited MPDs expanded camera network, adding "Those cameras have been instrumental in helping to solve recent retail thefts and car break-ins."
And just yesterday MPD got even more help from the Memphis city council.
The new budget calls for 11 million dollars to be spent each of the next five years to update and integrate its camera system.