Subject: [NEXTEL-1] "Law Enforcement to Vehicle Thieves: Steal This Car, Please"

From: Marcelrf <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 19 Feb 2004 13:31:43 -0500

"Law Enforcement to Vehicle Thieves: Steal This Car, Please"
Vancouver Columbian (WA) (02/13/04) P. A1; Branton, John

Clark County, Wash., has deployed a bait car equipped with
tracking technologies, including the Global Positioning
System and sensor equipment, to catch car thieves. Officers
can use the car to catch thieves by leaving it parked for
weeks in high-crime areas or set sting operations in which
officers monitor theft attempts. WSP Trooper Garvin March
noted that officers can respond to the car's theft "within
minutes." Vehicle thefts increased in Clark County from 856
to 1,385 from 2000 to 2001, reports the Washington
Association of Sheriff's and Police Chiefs. Training to
track the car only requires a single day and police can
modify or change the color of the vehicle to confuse thieves
who become familiar with its appearance. WSP dispatchers in
Tacoma monitor the bait cars' sensor signals through a
special computer. Insurance companies provide the bait cars
free of charge.

==============================================================================

Law enforcement to vehicle thieves: Steal this car, please
Friday, February 13, 2004

JOHN BRANTON Columbian staff writer

A thief walks up to a sharp-looking car, skillfully opens the locked
door with a slim-jim tool and drives away, snickering at how easy it
was.

Minutes later, however, his mood darkens.
The engine dies and the thief has to coast to a parking place. When he
tries to get out of the car, he finds he's locked in.
Even the windows won't roll down.
Then the police cars start showing up.

Such a scenario likely will occur in Clark County, now that the
Washington State Patrol is ready to start deploying its new "bait car."

Equipped with electronic components including Global Positioning System
gear and sensors monitored by State Patrol dispatchers, the bait car is
meant to be stolen -- and recovered as well, said WSP Trooper Garvin
March.
Police, including state, city and county officers, plan to park the car
in high-theft areas and hope an unscrupulous sucker will come along.

Law enforcement officials can use the car two different ways: They might
park it while undercover officers hang out in the area and watch.  Or
they can simply leave it, for days or weeks at a time, and count on the
sensors to alert dispatchers when the car is opened, entered, started or
moved.

As soon as that happens, dispatchers will notify officers and, using the
GPS system, tell them, within a few feet, where the car is at a given
moment.

"Within seconds of them touching the car, we're going to know it, and
within minutes we're going to be on top of them," said Trooper March,
who last summer helped make a video for training officers how to use the
system.
Vehicle theft is an increasingly serious problem.

From 2001 to 2002, the most recent year for which statistics are
available, incidents of vehicle theft in Clark County rose from 856 to
1,385, an increase of 61.8 percent, according to the Washington
Association of Sheriff's and Police Chiefs in Lacey.
High-theft areas here include Westfield Shoppingtown Vancouver, movie
multiplexes and apartment complexes, basically anywhere large numbers of
cars are parked, March said.

Thieves also target cars parked on the street and in driveways.

Troopers hope to work with the Vancouver Police Department, Clark County
Sheriff's Office and smaller city police departments in Clark County to
nab crooks with the bait car. An officer can be trained to use the
system in a single day.
March is notifying the public, including thieves, about the bait car,
but he won't tip officers' hands by saying what make, model, year or
color it is. The car, like several others in use throughout the state,
is a late model. The special equipment, powered by two batteries, is
hidden so the average car thief wouldn't detect it.

"It doesn't look any different from any other car out there," March
said.

If the car somehow becomes known to thieves, officers can have it
painted or otherwise modified, or even bring in a different one from
another area.

For now, the bait cars' sensor signals are being monitored by WSP
dispatchers in Tacoma, where the data appears on a console running a
special computer program. When there is a "bait-car activation," the
Tacoma dispatcher will phone police dispatchers in Clark County, who
will scramble the police.

The system costs police little or nothing. Insurance companies donate
the cars and the electronics to the National Insurance Crime Bureau,
which gives them to police agencies. And since the cars can be left
unattended until someone tampers with them, the time officers devote to
the vehicles is minimal.

GPS helps fight vehicle theft in other ways besides bait cars. Some
vehicles are sold equipped with GPS tracking systems, which can be used
to recover a stolen vehicle.

This fall, Clark County officials plan to have police cars and fire
trucks equipped with such technology.
That will allow 911 dispatchers to see where the vehicles are at a given
moment and send the closest one to an emergency call.
Besides catching thieves, troopers hope the bait car will deter some
thefts. "That's one of the points of going public with this is to throw
a little paranoia out there," March said.

 Car Thieves Use In Clark County

* Joy riders, often teenagers, steal a car, take it for a spin and
abandon it, sometimes heavily vandalized.

* A thief takes a car planning to remove and sell some its parts, such
as expensive air bags or leather seats, on the black market.

* Professional thieves steal a valuable car, alter the identification
numbers and paperwork, and sell it out of state or in another country.

* A thief buys a nice car in his own name. He then strips it, dumps the
hulk in the woods and reports it stolen. After collecting from the
insurance company, the thief buys the hulk for next to nothing at an
auction and puts the parts back on it.

* In steal-to-order cases, a buyer tells a thief exactly what kind of
car he wants, such as a perfect 1976 Chevrolet Corvette, and the thief
finds one.

* A thief owns a beat-up car with legal registration and paperwork.
He steals a nicer car of the same type, puts the better parts on his
beat-up car, and gets rid of the stolen frame.

Source: Washington State Patrol

http://www.columbian.com/02132004/front_pa/117391.html

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