Buffalo Metro Crime Watch: Burglaries and Car Thefts, Week of July 6 – July 12, 2026
The stretch of Troop A blotters covering Monday, July 6 through Sunday, July 12 read like a reminder that most property crime around the Buffalo suburbs is quiet, opportunistic, and close to home. Two burglaries landed in the town of Lockport and the neighboring town of Royalton, three separate people were booked on theft-related charges out of Niagara and Genesee counties, and Clarence woke up one Tuesday morning to a pair of cars that had been rifled through overnight. Add a dozen burglar-alarm runs and four fraud reports spread from Amherst to Orleans County, and you get a fairly typical week — the kind where a locked door or a pulled key would have changed the ending for a lot of victims.
Below is every case we pulled from this week’s New York State Police reports for the Erie, Niagara, Genesee, and Orleans County towns that Troop A patrols — Clarence, Lockport, Niagara, Albion, Batavia, Boston, and Alden. City departments in Buffalo, Niagara Falls, and Lockport keep their own logs, so this is only the State Police slice of the picture.
Everyone named below is presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty in a court of law. Charges are accusations filed by the New York State Police; they are not convictions. We name only adults who appear in arrest records, we never identify juveniles, and every case is tied to its official incident number and source report so you can read the record yourself.
This Week at a Glance
| Date & time | Town | What happened | Status | Report |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Jul 6, 6:06 PM | Lockport (Town) | Burglary reported at a home | Open | |
| Jul 6, 9:45 AM | Royalton | Attempted burglary | Closed | |
| Jul 6, 1:43 AM | Lockport (Town) | Arrest — petit larceny (theft from building) | Arrest / charges | |
| Jul 6 | Lockport (Town) | Two arrests — third-degree burglary, petit larceny, conspiracy | Arrest / charges | |
| Jul 7, 2:35 PM | Niagara Falls (Town patrol) | Theft from a building | Closed | |
| Jul 8, 12:33 PM | Oakfield | Arrest — petit larceny (theft from building) | Arrest / charges | |
| Jul 12, 12:05 PM | Royalton | Theft from a building | Closed — declined | |
| Jul 7, 9:36 AM | Clarence | Theft from a vehicle | Open | |
| Jul 7, 9:12 AM | Clarence | Theft from a vehicle | Open | |
| Jul 8, 9:33 AM | Batavia (Town) | Lost or stolen license plate | Closed | |
| Jul 9, 11:33 AM | Clarence | Lost or stolen license plate | Closed | |
| Jul 6, 8:37 PM | Amherst | Fraud | Open | |
| Jul 9, 11:03 AM | Gaines (Orleans Co.) | Fraud | Closed | |
| Jul 10, 2:46 PM | Pembroke | Fraud — criminal impersonation | Closed | |
| Jul 12, 8:39 PM | Stafford | Fraud | Closed |
“Open” means the State Police investigation was still active when the report was filed; “Closed” means the case was cleared or closed. “Declined” means a prosecutor chose not to pursue charges. Any charges listed are accusations only.
Burglaries and Break-Ins
Burglary is the crime that puts a locksmith’s phone to ringing, and this week the activity clustered tightly in eastern Niagara County. Here is what the reports actually said.
A burglary reported in the town of Lockport (Open)
The most straightforward case of the week came in on Monday, July 6 at 6:06 p.m., when troopers logged a burglary at a location in the town of Lockport. The State Police listed the investigation as pending — meaning no arrest had been made when the blotter was filed. There is no defendant and no property list in the public record, which is common while detectives are still working a fresh scene. It is the one case this week that remained genuinely open.
Source: NYSP Troop A report, July 6, 2026 (archived PDF) — Incident NY2600842049
An attempted break-in in Royalton (Closed)
Earlier that same Monday, at 9:45 a.m., a report of an attempted burglary came out of Royalton, the rural town that wraps around Middleport on the Niagara–Orleans line. The State Police marked it closed/cleared. An attempt that gets logged and closed usually means someone tried a door or a window and either failed or was scared off — a good outcome, and a reminder that the difference between “attempted” and “completed” is often nothing more than a deadbolt that held.
Source: NYSP Troop A report, July 6, 2026 (archived PDF) — Incident NY2600839144
Two arrests on a third-degree burglary charge in the town of Lockport
The week’s headline arrest also came out of the town of Lockport. In a case originally reported on July 2, the State Police booked two Lockport residents on July 6. According to the report, Jessica L. Werder, 35, was charged with third-degree burglary — a Class D felony that covers knowingly entering a building to commit a crime — along with petit larceny. Jose Hernandez, 61, was charged with fifth-degree conspiracy in the same incident. Both were released on appearance tickets. A third-degree burglary count is the State’s way of saying investigators believe someone went inside a structure they had no right to enter; pairing it with a conspiracy charge signals they think more than one person planned it. Everyone here is presumed innocent, and the charges are accusations.
Case update: this is a development of a break-in we flagged in last week’s crime watch, when the record showed only the initial felony charge against Werder and an open investigation. This week’s filing adds the July 6 arrests — and a second defendant, Hernandez, on the conspiracy count.
Source: NYSP Troop A report, July 6, 2026 (archived PDF) — Incident NY2600822336
An overnight theft-from-a-building arrest in the town of Lockport
Hours before that, at 1:43 a.m. on July 6, troopers in the town of Lockport arrested Amanda L. Munt, 47, of Lockport on a petit larceny charge tied to a theft from a building first reported back on June 12. She was taken for central arraignment. The category the State Police use here — “larceny from a building” — is worth understanding: it is theft from inside a structure without the forced entry that would make it a burglary. Think an unlocked garage, a shared hallway, a business left open. It is one of the most preventable property crimes on the blotter.
Source: NYSP Troop A report, July 6, 2026 (archived PDF) — Incident NY2600741965
A petit larceny arrest in Oakfield
Over in Genesee County, the Batavia-based troopers arrested Marissa B. Torres, 35, of Batavia on July 8 at 12:33 p.m. She was charged with petit larceny in an Oakfield theft-from-a-building case that dated back to February, and was released on an appearance ticket. Older report date, recent arrest — a pattern you see often when investigators finally match a name to a months-old theft.
Source: NYSP Troop A report, July 8, 2026 (archived PDF) — Incident NY2600258593
Two more building thefts, both cleared
Two additional theft-from-a-building reports rounded out the category without arrests. On July 7 at 2:35 p.m., State Police handling the Niagara Falls patrol area logged a building theft and closed it. And on July 12 at 12:05 p.m., a building-theft report out of Royalton was cleared when the prosecution was declined — often meaning the complainant did not wish to pursue it, or the value did not support a charge.
Source: NYSP Troop A report, July 7, 2026 (archived PDF) — Incident NY2600843552
Source: NYSP Troop A report, July 12, 2026 (archived PDF) — Incident NY2600862682
The alarm map: a dozen burglar-alarm runs
Beyond the confirmed break-ins, troopers rolled on 12 burglar-alarm calls across the metro this week. Every one was closed as a false or accidental trip — but the geography is the interesting part. Clarence was the clear hotspot with five alarm responses, followed by two apiece in Batavia, Niagara, and Alden, and one in Lockport. Troopers also answered five fire-alarm calls and one bank alarm. A monitored alarm that summons a real trooper is doing its job even when nothing is wrong; the towns lighting up the alarm map are the same ones where a hard target — good locks plus monitoring — pays off.
Source: NYSP Troop A daily blotters, July 6–12, 2026 (official report index)
Car Thefts and Vehicle Break-Ins
No vehicles were reported stolen out of the State Police metro towns this week — a genuinely good sign. What did happen were the small, grinding crimes that come with leaving a car unlocked or a plate unsecured.
Two Clarence cars hit the same Tuesday morning
The standout vehicle story was in Clarence. Within about 25 minutes on the morning of July 7 — one report at 9:12 a.m., the next at 9:36 a.m. — troopers took two separate larceny-from-vehicle complaints in the town. Both were still under investigation when the blotter closed. Back-to-back thefts from cars in one neighborhood, in the same window, almost always mean someone walked a street overnight testing door handles. The cars that get hit are the unlocked ones; the ones that get skipped are the ones that beep when the handle is pulled.
Source: NYSP Troop A report, July 7, 2026 (archived PDF) — Incident NY2600842414
Source: NYSP Troop A report, July 7, 2026 (archived PDF) — Incident NY2600842566
Two license plates gone — Batavia and Clarence
Two lost-or-stolen license plate reports came in during the week: one in the town of Batavia on July 8 at 9:33 a.m., and one in Clarence on July 9 at 11:33 a.m. Both were closed. A missing plate sounds minor, but stolen plates get bolted onto other cars to dodge tolls, gas drive-offs, and red-light cameras — which is how an innocent owner ends up explaining a violation they never committed. Anti-theft plate screws cost a couple of dollars and end the problem.
Source: NYSP Troop A report, July 8, 2026 (archived PDF) — Incident NY2600846113
Source: NYSP Troop A report, July 9, 2026 (archived PDF) — Incident NY2600850603
Commercial Crime Watch
Fraud was the quiet workhorse of the week, with four reports scattered across the metro. Three were closed and one remained open. On July 6 at 8:37 p.m., a fraud complaint out of Amherst was logged and left under investigation. A July 9 fraud report from the town of Gaines in Orleans County was closed. And Genesee County produced two: a July 10 “criminal impersonation” fraud in Pembroke, and a straightforward fraud report in Stafford on July 12 — both closed. Criminal impersonation is the label the State Police reach for when someone pretends to be another person or a fake business to pull off the scam, the digital-age version of a con at the door.
Source: NYSP Troop A report, July 6, 2026 (archived PDF) — Incident NY2600841138
Source: NYSP Troop A report, July 9, 2026 (archived PDF) — Incident NY2600850577
Source: NYSP Troop A report, July 10, 2026 (archived PDF) — Incident NY2600855463
Source: NYSP Troop A report, July 12, 2026 (archived PDF) — Incident NY2600864480
No robberies and no commercial burglaries turned up in the State Police metro logs this week. On the quieter side of the ledger, troopers also ran 6 property checks and fielded 24 suspicious-activity, suspicious-person, and suspicious-vehicle calls — the routine work that keeps a lot of would-be break-ins from ever making it onto the crime list.
Source: NYSP Troop A daily blotters, July 6–12, 2026 (official report index)
The Week by the Numbers
| Category (State Police metro towns) | Count |
|---|---|
| Burglaries & attempted burglaries | 2 |
| Thefts from a building | 5 |
| Thefts from a vehicle | 2 |
| Lost or stolen license plates | 2 |
| Fraud & identity-related reports | 4 |
| Burglar-alarm responses | 12 |
| Suspicious activity / person / vehicle calls | 24 |
| Property checks | 6 |
| Crime & security calls listed above | 57 |
| All other State Police calls (aid & assists, accidents, welfare checks, traffic, animal complaints, and the rest of the routine log) | 397 |
| Total State Police incidents, metro towns | 454 |
These totals cover only New York State Police Troop A activity in Clarence, Lockport, Niagara, Albion, Batavia, Boston, and Alden. 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 where the arrests landed this week — petit larceny, theft from a building, a burglary charge in the town of Lockport. Almost none of that needs a broken window. It needs an unlocked side door, a garage left open, a key that was never pulled. And two cars hit in Clarence inside half an hour tells you someone was just walking down the street trying handles. Good locks don’t make you un-rob-able. They make you the harder house on the block, and the harder house is the one they skip.” — Simon Goodman, Defense Locksmith, Buffalo NY
Here is how we’d translate this week’s blotter into a to-do list for your own home and car:
- If a key is unaccounted for, rekey rather than wonder. After a tenant turnover, a lost key, or a suspected building theft, a fast deadbolt rekey makes every old key useless without changing your hardware.
- Treat side and garage doors like front doors. The building thefts this week are exactly the kind that ride in on a secondary entrance. Our residential locksmith team can put a real deadbolt on the doors you forget about.
- Lock the car, every night, every time. The Clarence thefts hit unlocked vehicles. If your fob is worn out or you’re down to one key, sort out a car key replacement so locking up is never a hassle you skip.
- Secure your license plates. Two plates vanished this week. Ask our automotive locksmiths about anti-theft plate hardware next time you’re in.
- Landlords: control your keys. Building thefts and turnover go together. A master-key system for landlords lets you re-pin one unit without rekeying the whole property.
- Know who to call at 2 a.m. Break-ins and lost keys don’t keep business hours. Save our emergency locksmith line, or just keep (716) 803-2934 in your phone.
For business owners
The fraud and building-theft cases this week are a nudge to tighten up who can get into your space and when. A few upgrades worth pricing out:
- Put staff on a master-key system so one lost key never means rekeying the whole building.
- Have a commercial locksmith audit your exterior doors and grade your current hardware.
- Fix the weak point burglars love with storefront door repair.
- Move past keys entirely with access control that logs every entry.
- Stay code-compliant and safe with proper panic bar installation.
- Keep a damaged door from becoming an open invitation — book commercial door repair before it fails.
We’ll keep reading the blotters so you don’t have to. Stay locked, Buffalo.
Sources: incident details in this post are drawn from the New York State Police Troop A daily public information reports for July 6–12, 2026, archived as PDFs and linked under each case; aggregate counts come from the same reports via the official NYSP blotter index. Everyone named is presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty in a court of law, and all charges described are accusations, not convictions. Juveniles are never named.