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News
Do you know where your car is going?
By Mat Herron
Snitch Staff
Writer
Sept. 8, 2004
Auto theft is nation's most costly property crime
Trucks don't just vanish. They have to go somewhere. A back alley,
maybe? An impound lot? Who knows?
All Dan Fischer knew was that his brother-in-law's truck, once
parked outside Fischer's Brooklyn, N.Y., apartment, wasn't where
it was supposed to be.
He and his brother-in-law cased the neighborhood, put up flyers
and told residents to keep their eyes peeled. About a month later,
the truck was recovered in a more dangerous section of New York
popular with drug dealers. It had been partially stripped and
covered in parking tickets, but it still retained some of its
value, Fischer said.
Necessity, the adage goes, is the mother of invention, and Fischer's
impromptu campaign prompted a broader, long-term vision for victims
of auto theft.
I realized by putting up these flyers that it would be better
to use the Internet, said Fischer, a management consultant who
now lives in Pennsylvania. I went and talked to some people I
knew in the insurance industry.
They liked it and put him in touch with the National Crime Insurance
Bureau in Illinois.
Fischer teamed up with David Badger, and in June 2002, a year
or so after that truck theft and recovery, stolencarreports.com
was born. The plan originally was to work closely with the NCIB
to gather data on stolen cars, but the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks
prevented the men from having access to information about U.S.
car owners.
The site works like this: The thieved and bereaved register their
car's vitals, including make, model and year, on the website.
The site has a function that electronically notifies the victim
when and if his car is found.
If your cars been stolen, the first thing you want to do is get
in a car and drive around because you know youíll spot
it, Fischer said. You know youíll want to put up flyers
on telephone poles. If you see it, call me at this number.
It's part grassroots awareness, part therapy and pretty popular.
Badger, who maintains the site regularly, estimates thousands
of people nationwide have registered with the site, hoping for
the swift return of their wheels.
No wheels, no joy
The problem with car theft aside from being illegal is it complicates
routine aspects of life.
Suddenly, a quick trip to the grocery store becomes an epic journey.
No more drive-through dinners -- you'll have to think outside
the bun -- and taking your date to the movies on a bus isn't likely
to make the desired impression.
And that's just the tip of the iceberg.
Sure, he who filches your good name is a miserable s.o.b., but
he who swipes your wheels may also nab your purse, your credit
cards, your laptop, your cellphone, your tools, your briefcase,
golf clubs and the baby's car seat. No telling what Shakespeare
would say.
Sometimes the items in the car are more valuable than the car
itself, said Badger, who has never had his car stolen.
In Louisville, residents love their autos almost as much as they
love bourbon. Just ask anybody who has sailed down River Road
at sunset. Wrecks notwithstanding, you can travel from downtown
to the East End or South End in 15 minutes or so. Semi-circular
expressways make it easy to navigate the metro area.
So far this year, 2,041 folks have been deprived of their fahrvegnugen,
compared with 3,788 in 2003, according to the Louisville Metro
Police Crime Analysis Unit.
Lexington was a distant second last year with 779 cars stolen.
Nationally, about a million cars were stolen in 2002, the last
year for which federal data is available, for a total cost of
$8.4 billion, making it the most costly property crime in the
United States.
But why?
From March through June of this year, police say, Robert Woodall
and Ricky Ellington were having as many as 60 cars illegally towed
in the Portland neighborhood and then crushed at various impound
lots.
Police aren't saying what they used the money for, but Bill Keeling,
a detective in the Sixth District who worked on the case, acknowledged
they each had drug habits.
Keeling said Woodall and Ellington would pick out cars, call
companies such as Marshall's Towing and River City Metals, among
others, and pretend they were the real owners. Both received anywhere
from $75 to $125 per car.
In one instance, Keeling said, officers were actually following
drag marks on the street to try to retrieve the cars before they
went bye-bye.
Keeling estimated for the month of June, Ellington had 27 cars
towed. Woodall had almost as many, police say, but theyíre
trying to determine if more have been stolen. They don't know
if the pair were working together or separately.
Since their arrests this summer, these thefts have stopped, Keeling
said. Police are working with tow-lot owners to cut down on theft
schemes, including having tow-lot employees write down the whole
VIN number, not just part, when a car is brought in.
Cash and drugs are common reasons why cars are stolen. Keeling
said he can usually tell if a car has been stolen and traded for
drugs if the owner offers little or no detail about the circumstances
of the purported theft.
The car was parked at home, locked; the owner has no idea how
it was taken, he said.
In other cases, thieves will take the car, modify the VIN (vehicle
identification number), change the license plate, drive it to
another city and resell it. VINs are in three places in your car,
so if one is modified, police can still see which one is not like
the others.
Fabled chop shops, where cars are taken, dismantled and re-sold
for parts, haven't been seen in Southern Indiana, said Keith Whitlow,
captain of the Criminal Investigation Division of the New Albany
Police Department. Chop shops tend to be located in more rural
places, he said.
Some thieves are mere joy-riders who steal cars because, Keeling
says, they need something to ride that week.
He has received reports on stolen cars right before Kentucky
Derby weekend, only to see them cruising down Broadway on a humid
Saturday night.
Car thieves fit no specific profile, but one characteristic is
that they are prolific. One juvenile offender, Keeling said, had
21 auto-theft charges against him in District Court.
Fortunately for car owners, if they give police as much information
as possible, it's not hard to obtain a conviction once the case
is brought to court.
Science is even playing a role, Keeling said. Crime labs are
now taking the DNA off steering wheels and matching it with possible
suspects.
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