BEND, OR -- Following a number of recent theft cases, Bend Police Chief Mike Krantz acknowledges the city is seeing more low-level crimes. "We have a decrease in person crimes, crimes of violence," Krantz tells KBND News, "But we do have an increase in that opportunistic crime."

The unfortunate reality, he says, is that everyone bears responsibility to be proactive in preventing theft. "We always encourage people: Remember to lock your doors. This is Bend. I know a lot of people leave their doors unlocked; they still do, both in their house, their car, their shed and their garage. It’s really critical to lock doors."

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Krantz says it’s part of our changing city, "It’s growth. And with that comes some of these growing city pains, in that there is an increase in some of these criminal activities. You know, I’m still thankful that we live in a very safe community. I talk to people about that all the time - yes, some of our lower level crimes of opportunity are increasing. But, overall, our violent crime, our person-to-person crime [is] extremely low for a community our size, actually."

The Chief also responded to concerns, following a brazen theft in the Old Mill. Krantz believes the three people who stole $20,000 worth of sunglasses from a store in the Old Mill, are committing similar crimes up and down the west coast, "Where you have a small group of people who go in and just overwhelm the store - not by force, not by robbery. But just start taking stuff and piling it in. And, for a variety of reasons there’s apprehension on the part of the employees; whether it be they’re just outnumbered, they’re in fear, corporate policies, whatever it is, they don’t intervene. It’s such a fast crime. It’s a minute or two and they’re out. Our average response time for in-progress crimes is about four minutes, so trying to get there on time, while it’s in progress, is difficult."

Click HERE to listen to our full conversation with BPD Chief Mike Krantz.