Woodside town hall: sheriffs cite targeted operations and ALPR data as reason residential burglaries fell to zero in February

Mayor Jen Wall convened a town hall at Independence Hall to address a surge of residential burglaries and to give residents direct access to San Mateo County sheriff leadership, town staff and the county supervisor.

Headquarters Bureau Captain Matthew Fox told the audience the sheriff’s office saw a spike in residential burglaries in late 2023 and into January 2024 but said targeted operations and cross-jurisdictional data sharing drove a rapid decline. “In January of 2024, we had 3 residential burglaries. And in February of 2024, this last month, we had 0,” Fox said, adding that investigators have identified and linked a small number of suspects to multiple incidents.

The sheriff’s office outlined a mix of enforcement and prevention tactics it said helped curb the trend: saturation patrols timed to data-derived hotspot windows; investigative surveillance and arrests; one-week operations that removed eight suspicious vehicles from Woodside in seven days; and expanded information sharing across…