“Laura77pasadena,” one of our readers, sent us this:

I live on the corner of Visscher Place and Mendocino. My car was parked in a driveway at 8pm on Thursday 01/07/10. The next day it was gone. I’ve noticed it missing only around noon the next day. I heard some loud noise on Mendocino side of the house that night around 1-2am. It sounded like a tow truck loading up a car. I though it was odd for neighbors to be doing that so late at night, but didn’t bother to look out the window. There was no broken glass on the driveway, a very clean job. I do suspect that thieves got my car with a tow truck.

There has been many robberies in our neighborhood during this last year, but no car thefts till now. Quite a few of us would notice strangers now and then parked on our street for an hour or so. As soon as you approach a car to take a better look with the intent of writing down the license plate number they would take off immediately.

Protect your neighbors and yourself by being observant, look out the window if you hear strange noises, write down the license plate numbers of suspicious cars. Listen to your gut instinct. It’s better to be safe than sorry!!!

It’s pretty brazen to use a tow truck to steal a car out in the open, but apparently that’s what we’re dealing with.  Laura sent a picture of her car, a Civic, which we are betting has already been parted out.

UPDATE 4 PM: Got this message from another reader.  These crooks are shameless!

Hey Tim, saw your piece on brazen car thieves and thought I would put the word out on what occurred on my street last week…my neighbor had the starter on his Ford truck cut out while the vehicle was parked on the street in front of his house….they didn’t even pop the hood..they pulled it out from beneath the truck…(and created a mess because of the wire cutting they did)…this occurred Sat evening…the suspected duo were male latinos with shaved heads and one had a black pit bull…..my neighbor thinks that it was them since he had seen them loitering near his house earlier in the evening…maybe just a crime of opportunity or need (as in: they needed to get their truck started!)

Any way…there you go.

We live on Morada Place east of Lake Ave.