Tickets to the Royals-Mets World Series rematch weren't cheap. That's why David Carpio decided to save a few bucks by parking at a private lot across from the stadium.
"All you want is for someone to be held accountable or some kind of closure on the situation, but neither one of those happened," said Carpio, a Royals fan.
The high of winning Sunday's game came crashing down when he discovered someone smashed out the windows of his truck and stole his girlfriend's purse.
"My window was busted out," he explained. "This one here is still broken I haven't fixed it. Some items I had inside of my car were outside sitting on the grass."
Carpio wasn't the only victim during the home opener. Bandits stole cash, credit cards, electronics, jewelry and other valuables from five other cars as well.
"Everyone had to figure it out on their own and go from there," said Carpio. He said he and others called 911, but police never showed up. After waking a few hours for them to arrive, he went home. "It's unfortunate. I gave up on the cops and took care of it myself."
By getting one of the two windows fixed.
While break ins happen inside the stadium parking lot as well, the Royals say there are fewer because police and security guards patrol the lots.
"We cannot guarantee that no break in is going to happen or that there won't be vandalism to a car, although we feel very confident that it has been extremely minimal," said Royals spokesman, Toby Cook.
Cook explained that at any given time, there are at least 50 security personnel patrolling the lot. Still, the Kauffman Stadium lots hold 18,902 cars, much more space than those 50 people can watch over.
Cook reports that between the two sold out games on Sunday and Tuesday, there was one break in at the official parking lot.
"It's always a good idea not to keep valuables in the car, if you have something that you consider more valuable then something else and it's visible to have it in the trunk," said Cook.
As for Carpio, he said from now on, pay the extra cash to park at The K.
"I will be going to games, but I will not be parking anywhere outside of the stadium," he said.
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Terra Hall can be reached at terra.hall@kshb.com.
