At least two families visiting San Francisco over the extended Fourth of July weekend had their holiday plans derailed after thieves broke into their cars.
A witness captured one of the break-ins on camera as it was happened Tuesday at Alamo Square.
The SUV that got hit by the smash-and-grab bandits was Alberto Cardona's rental. He said his daughter was left in tears because the thief stole a backpack with her favorite stuffed animal in it. His oldest son lost a laptop.
"You don't understand the impact," Cardona said. "My child's seat is on the side of the car with the broken window. And now my son is going to sit there. We're going to have to clear out every single little bit of glass."
Cardona was trying to figure out how to properly clean the glass-covered car seat because the family still has several days left on their California vacation.
The Reyes family from El Paso, Texas, was walking by when the break-in occurred.
"All of us around, I could see people across, everywhere," Lorena Reyes said. "I didn't do anything because I'm the kind that would go and do something, but at that point I don't know if they have a gun."
The Reyes family later realized their rental had also been hit.
"It seems that they just get valuable things that they see as valuable," Reyes said. "They left our Starbucks bag. They left the wheelchair at least. But everything else they took."
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The Reyes and Cardona families both said they were repeatedly told by desk clerks, waiters and rental car agents not to leave anything in their cars because property crimes in San Francisco are a major problem.
Both families stopped at Alamo Square for just five minutes to snap some photos at the iconic spot, but that's all the time it took to become the city's latest car break-in victims.
"I'm recently graduated, maybe this could be a place that I could live here, but if this is a constant thing I have to worry about, I don't know if I would want to live here," Erica Reyes said.
