RUNNING AUTOS EASY TARGETS FOR THIEVES.

Byline: Greg Botonis Staff Writer

LANCASTER - Car thieves are targeting vehicles with their engines left running in driveways or at curb sides before their owners leave for work, sheriff's deputies said.

More than 70 vehicles have been stolen in the Antelope Valley in the past two weeks, with almost all the thefts occurring between 4 a.m. and 7 a.m. and most of them involving cars whose engines were left running.

``Car owners are urged to warm their cars up in a secured area and to keep constant watch over them when their keys are in the ignition,'' Lancaster sheriff's station spokesman Micah Currado said.

In the most recent thefts, three cars were stolen within a three-hour period early Thursday in Quartz Hill, officials said.

One suspect, 21-year-old Jeffrey Bradley of Rosamond, was arrested.

Thursday's first two thefts occurred just before 5 a.m. at neighboring homes. A man walked outside to get in his car, which he had left running, and saw that it was gone. Seconds later, the man saw a white van stop in front of his neighbor's house. A man jumped out of the van and into the neighbor's running car and both van and car sped away.

About 7 a.m., a few blocks away, a woman saw a man get out of a white van, climb into her Chevrolet Silverado truck, which had the engine running in the driveway, and speed off.

Deputies spotted the stolen truck near Division Street and Avenue F and began following it. Both the deputies and the truck stopped at a railroad crossing as the crossing arms came down, but the truck shot through the crossing and deputies lost sight of it.

Deputies again spotted the vehicle on Rosamond Boulevard and attempted to stop it, but the driver fled into a nearby housing tract in the 1500 block of Edwards Avenue. Witnesses directed deputies to Bradley's house.

When he didn't respond to their orders to come out, deputies forced their way into the house and arrested Bradley.

``The suspect said he stole the truck because he just needed to get to Rosamond,'' according to a sheriff's report.

Bradley is suspected in an earlier auto burglary, but investigators are unsure whether he was involved with any of the other recent vehicle thefts. Bradley got out of jail Nov. 29 after spending two months behind bars for receiving stolen property and identity theft.

Bradley was taken to the Lancaster sheriff's station, where he was being held on suspicion of grand theft with bail set at $20,000.

Sheriff's officials urged people not to leave their cars unattended with the doors unlocked or the keys in the ignition. Officials also said there is usually an increase of car thefts involving running cars in winter.