Midtown residents are fed up with a recent series of vehicle break-ins, leading one man to take investigation work into his own hands.

After setting up a surveillance system, a local resident caught a team of thieves on video earlier this week, smashing car windows with one of history's oldest weapons — the slingshot.

"I'm pretty angry about it," the amateur crime investigator, who refrained from giving his name, told KHOU-11 reporters. "This is a common reoccurrence in the this area."

The video shows the thieves driving up to the residential block in a gold late-model Impala. A male suspect, donning the classic burglar's hoodie, precedes to break the windows of two SUVs with a slingshot, as other members of the group search the interiors for valuables.

The conventional wisdom says that those living in an areas regularly hit by break-ins tend to keep anything of value out of their vehicles.

“We did not have anything in the car," said the man with the surveillance video, who also owns one of the vandalized SUVs. "I just didn’t understand why they did it to begin with.”

Words from the wise

"Don't shoot your little sister and don't use slingshots to break windows," warned Chief AJ, who heads the National Slingshot Association in between his television appearances on the History Channel's Top Shot.

"Haven't these vandals heard my talks on slingshot etiquette?" he laughed during a phone interview with CultureMap.

All jokes aside, the Chief, who's filmed a number of TV pieces throughout the state, said he was less than amused by the string of Midtown incidents. "That's awful, really... they really shouldn't use slingshots like that."

For now, the Houston Police Department has increased its presence in the neighborhood to help prevent further burglaries, the most recent of which occurred Wednesday night. Citizens with information on the break-ins are asked to contact the police.