St. Thomas police charged six people in vehicle-entry cases between Saturday, September 19th and Tuesday, September 22nd. All six face charges of having stolen property, using stolen bank or credit cards, or both.
The arrests followed a busy weekend. On Saturday, three homeowners in the south end reported their vehicles entered, with bank cards, ID, a wallet and a vehicle ownership taken. By Monday, police were looking into four more entries reported over the weekend, including on Elizabeth Street and Ross Street, and two more vehicles had been entered in a driveway on Sunset Drive on Sunday night.
That is a lot of police work on one kind of crime. The long-term numbers tell a more surprising story.
Ten years of numbers
Across Ontario, these crimes have been trending down over the past decade. In St. Thomas, thefts from vehicles hit a 10-year low in 2025.
Statistics Canada counted 84 thefts from vehicles in St. Thomas last year (thefts worth $5,000 or less). That is the fewest since 2015, and about a third of the 2020 high of 243. Per person, the city was below the province: 170 thefts from vehicles for every 100,000 people, against 211 across Ontario.
Whole cars being stolen is also less common here than across Ontario. St. Thomas had 49 vehicle thefts in 2025, a rate of about 99 per 100,000 people, roughly half of Ontario’s 187. Across the province, vehicle thefts fell from 44,570 in 2023 to 30,354 in 2025.
Why this year stands out
That low is what makes the last few months stand out. St. Thomas police do not put a running 2026 count of vehicle entries in their public releases. They do post a daily media release, and the releases published from August 3rd to September 23rd describe at least 75 vehicle entries. As LocVox reported in August, the releases from July 7th to August 2nd described at least 23 more. Counted the same way both times, that is a jump from about six a week in July to about ten a week since.
That is a floor, not an official figure. The daily releases are not a full record, and they include entries where nothing was taken. Statistics Canada counts crimes by its own rules, so the two numbers do not measure the same thing. Still, as a rough sense of scale and not a like-for-like comparison: close to 100 vehicle entries in under three months of police releases, against 84 thefts from vehicles in all of 2025.
Police saw the rise early. On July 29th, the service warned of “an increase in vehicle entries and thefts reported across the city,” adding that in most cases the vehicles “had been left unlocked and showed no signs of forced entry.” In a July 24th report to the Police Services Board, Chief Marc Roskamp wrote that incident and event volumes in 2026 had “already exceeded the same period in 2025 by nearly 1,000 occurrences.” That covers every kind of call, not only vehicles.
Break-ins are the exception
Break and enters, into homes, businesses and other buildings, are the exception. Here, St. Thomas runs well above the province. Police recorded 180 in 2025, up from 150 in 2024. That works out to 364 for every 100,000 people, nearly double Ontario’s rate of 189. London’s rate was 213 and Woodstock’s was 283.
However, the city’s break-ins are well down from 2022, when police recorded 342. Ontario’s break-in rate in 2025 was the lowest in the nearly 30 years the table covers, back to 1998.
Few cases are solved
Most thefts from vehicles are never solved. In 2025, St. Thomas police cleared 7 thefts from vehicles, against 84 reported, or about 8 percent. (Cleared means solved, by a charge or otherwise. Some cases cleared in a year were reported in earlier years.) That is still better than Ontario, at about 3 percent. For break-ins, St. Thomas cleared 48 against 180 reported, about 27 percent, close to Ontario’s 24 percent.
That leaves the simplest fix as the best one. Police put it in four words: “Lock it or lose it.” Their advice:
- Lock all doors and close every window, even if you are only leaving for a short time.
- Take wallets, passports, bank cards and ID inside with you.
- Never leave keys or valuables in the vehicle, and keep bags, tools and electronics out of sight.
- Park in a well-lit area when you can.
- Report vehicle entries and thefts to police.
Sources: Statistics Canada, Table 35-10-0180-01, police-reported crime by police service in Ontario · St. Thomas Police Service, “Increase in Vehicle Entries Reported” · St. Thomas Police Service media releases
By Anthony Zruna · About the LocVox Newsroom
Update - September 24, 2026, 11:57 a.m. ET: On Thursday, September 24th, St. Thomas police reported two more developments from Wednesday. A woman already charged in the vehicle-entry investigation faces an additional charge of possession of property obtained by crime, after officers found several items recently reported stolen. Separately, police arrested a woman on Ross Street on Wednesday afternoon after she was seen entering a vehicle and removing property. She is charged with theft under $5,000.
Before you go
You read a local story to the end, so St. Thomas news matters to you. Once a week I gather the whole week into one Friday email: top stories, the weekend forecast, what council decided, what police logged, and what's on this weekend. Free, and one click unsubscribes you.
Send me Friday's newsletter