Buffalo Metro Crime Watch: Burglaries and Car Thefts, Week of August 3 – August 9, 2026
Two things stood out in the first full week of August. On Tuesday afternoon, troopers made theft arrests in two different towns twenty-eight minutes apart — one in Lockport, one in Clarence, both for stealing from inside a building. And for the second week running, a vehicle was reported taken in Clarence. Nine larceny reports in all, six fraud complaints, fourteen burglar alarms that every one came back clean, and still not a single confirmed break-in anywhere on the Troop A blotter. The pattern this summer keeps saying the same thing: the locks are holding, and the losses are coming through what was left open.
Below is the property-crime activity from this week’s New York State Police reports for the towns Troop A patrols — Clarence, Lockport, Alden, Batavia, Boston, Niagara, Lewiston, Grand Island and the rural stretches beyond. City departments in Buffalo, Niagara Falls and Lockport keep their own logs, so this is only the State Police slice of the picture.
These figures come from the Troop A daily reports covering 7:01 a.m. Monday, August 3 through 7:00 a.m. Sunday, August 9. Sunday daytime activity is published in Monday morning’s report and will appear in next week’s edition.
This Week at a Glance
| Date & time | Town | What happened | Status | Incident # |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Aug 3, 7:10 AM | Batavia (Town) | Criminal mischief | Closed | NY2600949349 |
| Aug 3, 11:00 AM | Batavia (Town) | Lost or stolen license plate | Closed | NY2600950406 |
| Aug 3, 3:48 PM | Clarendon | Larceny (theft) | Closed | NY2600952816 |
| Aug 3, 4:49 PM | Pavilion | Trespass | Closed | NY2600952859 |
| Aug 3, 4:57 PM | Pendleton | Larceny (theft) | Cleared | NY2600952374 |
| Aug 3, 10:50 PM | Batavia (Town) | Trespass | Closed | NY2600953904 |
| Aug 4, 9:17 AM | Clarence | Larceny of a vehicle | Closed | NY2600955310 |
| Aug 4, 11:36 AM | Boston | Fraud | Closed | NY2600956226 |
| Aug 4, 1:16 PM | Java | Fraud | Closed | NY2600957572 |
| Aug 4, 1:20 PM | Lockport (Town) | Larceny from a building | Arrest — adult | NY2600956877 |
| Aug 4, 1:48 PM | Clarence | Larceny from a building | Arrest — adult | NY2600957178 |
| Aug 4, 2:17 PM | Pavilion | Trespass | Closed | NY2600957358 |
| Aug 4, 4:47 PM | Niagara Falls (patrol) | Larceny (theft) | Closed | NY2600960542 |
| Aug 5, 9:58 AM | Batavia (Town) | Larceny (theft) | Reported | NY2600961570 |
| Aug 5, 11:59 AM | Lockport (Town) | Larceny from a building | Closed | NY2600962200 |
| Aug 5, 1:37 PM | Clarence | Fraud | Closed | NY2600963012 |
| Aug 5, 2:49 PM | Clarence | Fraud | Closed | NY2600963260 |
| Aug 6, 3:26 PM | Clarence | Lost or stolen license plate | Closed | NY2600969575 |
| Aug 6, 6:46 PM | Clarence | Lost or stolen license plate | Closed | NY2600970322 |
| Aug 7, 1:59 PM | Lockport (Town) | Larceny (theft) | Closed | NY2600974407 |
| Aug 8, 11:41 AM | Royalton | Fraud | Closed | NY2600978780 |
| Aug 8, 12:50 PM | Alexander | Fraud | Closed | NY2600979187 |
| Aug 3–8 | Metro-wide | Burglar-alarm responses (14 runs) | All closed | 14 incidents |
“Closed” or “Cleared” means the case was resolved when the report was filed; “Reported” means the complaint was logged with no disposition yet listed. Charges arising from any arrest are accusations only, and everyone is presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty. We do not republish the names of people arrested in these reports.
Burglaries and Break-Ins
Once again, the metro towns logged no confirmed burglaries. No forced doors, no pried windows, no broken glass anywhere on the State Police reports for the week. That is now three of the last four weeks with a zero in this column, which is a genuinely good summer by any measure.
Troopers did run on fourteen burglar-alarm calls, and every single one closed without a break-in. The map looks familiar: Clarence again led with five alarm responses, then Lockport and Alden with two apiece, and single runs out of Lewiston, Niagara, Grand Island, Boston and Newfane. Week after week the same two towns light up the alarm board, and week after week nothing is actually broken into. That is what a hard target looks like from the outside.
Source: NYSP Troop A daily blotters, August 3–9, 2026 (official report index)
Car Thefts and Vehicle Break-Ins
A vehicle taken in Clarence — for the second week in a row
On Tuesday morning, August 4 at 9:17 a.m., State Police logged a larceny of a vehicle in Clarence. That is the category the troopers use when a vehicle itself is taken, not just gone through. The case was closed on the report.
Here is why we are flagging it rather than filing it under routine: last week’s edition carried a larceny of a vehicle in Clarence too, on Thursday, July 30. Two vehicles taken from the same town in eight days is not a trend you can prove from a blotter, but it is absolutely a reason for anyone in that corridor to go check where their spare keys are tonight.
And that is the real lesson in a modern vehicle theft. It is almost never a defeated lock. It is a key — one left in the cup holder, hung by the door, tucked in a magnetic box under the bumper, or a second key that came with a used car and was never accounted for. If a key to your vehicle exists somewhere you cannot point to, your vehicle is not secured, no matter how good the locks are. The fix is not a bigger lock. It is erasing that key from the car’s memory so it stops working.
Source: NYSP Troop A report, August 4, 2026 — Incident NY2600955310.
Three license plates gone, two of them in Clarence
Three lost-or-stolen plate reports came in this week: one in the town of Batavia on Monday, then two in Clarence on Thursday, roughly three hours apart in the afternoon and early evening. Two plates off cars in one town on one day is the sort of thing that usually means somebody walked a lot with a screwdriver.
A missing plate reads like a DMV errand, but stolen plates get bolted onto other vehicles to beat tolls, gas drive-offs and red-light cameras, and those violations come back to the registered owner. Report it quickly so there is a paper trail, and put anti-theft screws in the replacement — our automotive locksmiths keep them on the van.
Source: NYSP Troop A reports, August 3–6, 2026 — Incidents NY2600950406, NY2600969575, NY2600970322.
Theft, Fraud & Commercial Crime Watch
Two building-theft arrests, twenty-eight minutes apart
The busiest stretch of the week was Tuesday afternoon. At 1:20 p.m. on August 4, troopers logged a larceny from a building in the town of Lockport that ended in an adult arrest. Twenty-eight minutes later, at 1:48 p.m., a second larceny-from-a-building report out of Clarence also ended in an adult arrest. A third building theft followed in Lockport the next day at 11:59 a.m.
“Larceny from a building” is the phrase worth learning, because it is the most preventable crime on the whole blotter. It means theft from inside a structure without the forced entry that would make it a burglary — an unlocked garage, a shared apartment hallway, a storeroom left open, a business propped for a delivery. Nobody picked anything. Somebody walked in.
Five more general larceny reports rounded out the week, spread across Pendleton, Clarendon, the Niagara Falls patrol area, the town of Batavia and Lockport. Nine theft reports in total — nearly double last week’s five.
Source: NYSP Troop A reports, August 4–5, 2026 — Incidents NY2600956877, NY2600957178, NY2600962200.
Six fraud reports, double last week
Fraud was the quiet growth story: six complaints, up from three the week before. Boston and Java on Tuesday, two out of Clarence within about an hour on Wednesday afternoon, then Royalton and Alexander on Saturday. All six were closed.
Suburban fraud still very often starts at the curb, with a check or a pre-approved credit offer lifted out of an unlocked mailbox and turned into an account nobody authorized. If your box still has the flimsy lock it shipped with, a proper mailbox lock remains one of the cheapest pieces of identity protection you can buy.
Rounding out the ledger: one criminal-mischief report in the town of Batavia early Monday, and three trespass complaints across Pavilion twice and the town of Batavia. No robberies and no commercial burglaries appeared in the State Police metro logs this week.
Source: NYSP Troop A reports, August 4–8, 2026 — Incidents NY2600956226, NY2600957572, NY2600963012, NY2600963260, NY2600978780, NY2600979187.
The Week by the Numbers
| Category (State Police metro towns) | Count |
|---|---|
| Confirmed burglaries | 0 |
| Robberies | 0 |
| Vehicles reported taken (larceny of a vehicle) | 1 |
| Thefts from a building | 3 |
| Other larceny / theft reports | 5 |
| Lost or stolen license plates | 3 |
| Fraud reports | 6 |
| Criminal mischief / vandalism | 1 |
| Trespass complaints | 3 |
| Burglar-alarm responses (all closed) | 14 |
| DWI stops & arrests | 5 |
| Suspicious activity / person / vehicle calls | 25 |
| Property checks | 16 |
| All other State Police calls (aid & assists, accidents, welfare checks, traffic, and the rest of the routine log) | ~370 |
| Total State Police incidents logged, metro towns | 453 |
These totals cover New York State Police Troop A activity in the Erie, Niagara, Genesee, Orleans and Wyoming County towns it patrols, for the reports running 7:01 a.m. August 3 through 7:00 a.m. August 9. The Buffalo, Niagara Falls and Lockport city police departments patrol their own jurisdictions and report separately, so citywide crime is not reflected here. See the official NYSP blotter index.
What This Week’s Cases Mean for Your Locks
“Look at Tuesday. Two arrests, two towns, twenty-eight minutes apart, both for taking things out of a building — and neither one needed a lock defeated. Then a vehicle gone in Clarence, second week running. That is the whole story of this summer around here. Nobody is picking locks. They are trying handles, walking through doors that were left open, and driving off with cars whose keys were sitting right there. If you cannot put your hand on every key to your house and your car tonight, that is the job. Not a new lock — a rekey.” — Simon Goodman, Defense Locksmith, Buffalo NY
Here is this week’s blotter turned into a short list:
- Find every key to your vehicle tonight. Two vehicles taken from Clarence in eight days. If a spare is missing, or the used car you bought only came with one key, we can erase the missing one from the vehicle’s computer. Start with a car key replacement.
- Lock the garage and the side door. Three building thefts and two arrests this week, none of them requiring force. Our residential locksmith team puts real deadbolts on the doors people forget.
- Rekey after any lost key. A deadbolt rekey makes every old key useless without swapping hardware — the cheapest peace of mind in this trade.
- Security screws in your plates. Two plates vanished in Clarence on the same day. Two dollars of hardware ends it.
- Lock the mailbox. Six fraud reports this week. A mailbox lock is cheap insurance against the paper trail crooks want most.
- Keep a 24-hour number handy. Save our emergency locksmith line, or just put (716) 803-2934 in your phone now.
For business owners
Three thefts from inside buildings in one week is a message for anyone with a storeroom, a back door or a delivery entrance. Worth pricing out with a commercial locksmith: a master-key system so one lost staff key never means rekeying the whole building, a proper audit of your exterior doors and closers, and access control that logs every entry so you know exactly who opened what and when.
We will keep reading the blotters so you do not have to. Stay locked, Buffalo.
Catch up on recent editions: July 27–August 2, July 20–26, and July 13–19.
Questions Buffalo homeowners ask us about the blotter
Two vehicles taken in Clarence in two weeks — should I be worried?
Worried is the wrong word; prepared is the right one. Two reports eight days apart in one town is not enough to prove a pattern, and we will not pretend otherwise. But it costs you nothing to go account for your spare keys tonight, and that single habit prevents the overwhelming majority of vehicle thefts, because they nearly always involve an available key rather than a defeated lock.
What does “larceny from a building” actually mean?
Theft from inside a structure without forced entry. If someone breaks in, it is a burglary. If someone walks into an unlocked garage, an open storeroom or a shared hallway and takes something, it is larceny from a building. The metro towns had three of those this week and zero burglaries, which tells you exactly where the weak point is.
If nobody is breaking in, why bother upgrading my locks?
Because the reason nobody is breaking in is that the doors that are locked are holding. Fourteen alarms and zero burglaries is what a neighborhood full of working deadbolts looks like. The losses this summer came through unlocked doors and loose keys, so the highest-value jobs right now are rekeys and putting a real deadbolt on the side and garage doors.
Somebody took my license plate. What should I do?
Report it to police right away and replace it through the DMV. Stolen plates get put on other vehicles to dodge tolls, gas drive-offs and camera tickets, and those tickets come back to you as the registered owner — the police report is what protects you. Then use anti-theft screws on the new plate.
Why does this week end at 7 a.m. Sunday?
The State Police publish each daily report covering 7:01 a.m. to 7:00 a.m. the following morning, so Sunday’s daytime activity is not released until Monday morning. Rather than hold the edition or estimate, we publish what the record actually shows and pick up the remainder next week.
Sources: incident details in this post are drawn from the New York State Police Troop A daily public information reports covering 7:01 a.m. August 3 through 7:00 a.m. August 9, 2026, and each case is tied to its official incident number; aggregate counts come from the same reports via the official NYSP blotter index. Charges arising from any arrest are accusations only and everyone is presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty in a court of law. We do not republish arrestee names, and juveniles are never identified.