Two juveniles are in custody after police in Winter Haven say they were caught on camera stealing a loaded gun from a car parked outside of a movie theater on Tuesday.
While the suspected teens in this case were caught, what about other cases when they are caught too late, or not at all?
In 2014, Tarpon Springs Officer Charles Kondek was killed when Marco Antonio Parilla Jr. shot him seven times with a gun that investigators said was stolen from an unlocked car in Jacksonville four months earlier.
Last week, Parilla was sentenced to life in prison.
But this isn't just a Jacksonville or a Winter Haven problem. It's a local problem.
Cpl. Larry McKinnon with the Hillsborough County Sheriff's Office says more than 95 percent of cars break-ins the county happen to an unlocked vehicle. In at least half the cases, there's a gun inside.
With a teen car theft issue that's already been called an epidemic by local officials, McKinnon says each break-in can set a domino effect of crimes into motion.
"That starts the wheel of all of this mess we've been involved in," he said. "They're looking for iPods, they're looking for cell phones, computers, but when they hit the jackpot, it's when they have found a gun."
Once that happens, now you've got a teenager on the street with a gun, McKinnon said.
"They are either going to keep it to facilitate more crimes or they're going to end up selling them," he said.
It's estimated there are more than 80,000 stolen guns in Florida's database, an exhaustive investigation by the Tampa Bay Times found, but that could be on the low-end since state law doesn't mandate owners report thefts.
On top of that, McKinnon argues there should be harsher penalties for people who do leave their guns in vehicles.
The last gun-storage law passed in Florida required gun owners to store the weapon away from kids, according to the Times. That was in 1989.
"We have laws on the books that are criminal in nature for parents who don't lock their guns up at home and a kid gets a hold of it," McKinnon said.
"We need to look at whether there should be some type of criminal or civil liability when it comes to guns being taken out of cars for people who have just left them there recklessly and these kids are getting into them."
So what's being done about it?
There is a joint task force between several agencies in Pinellas and Hillsborough counties focusing on the car theft issue. But when it comes to the stolen guns, police say the easiest fix is to not leave your weapon in your car.
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