TEXARKANA, Texas (KTAL/KMSS) – The Texarkana Texas Police Department says they are seeing a spike in car thefts.

Although it is a recurring problem in the area, police say it is happening even more now that it is cold outside.

“We’ve actually had four of these in the last two weeks where people have been warming the cars up before, they get ready to go to work or something like that, they go and start the car, go back inside give it a couple minutes to warm up come back out and the car is gone,” TTPD PIO Shawn Vaughn said.

Tuesday morning, that very thing happened to a woman living at the Woodbridge apartments. She started her car in the parking lot about 5 to 10 minutes before she got in to let it warm up. Once she went outside, the car was gone.

“It’s actually against the law to leave your car unattended running like that, but on top of that it’s just a really bad idea.”

Vaughn said last year there were 134 vehicles stolen in Texarkana and most of them happened when people left their keys in the ignition.

“You want to make sure that you don’t ever leave your car unattended while it’s running, make sure you lock it up, take your keys, and as always if you got anything in there hide your stuff so nobody can steal it.”