Recently, law enforcement in King County has been increasing its efforts to disrupt, interdict, and arrest car thieves – with an emphasis on high-impact, repeat offenders. Patrol officers are out on the streets each day recovering more stolen cars and responding to an increasing number of citizen calls reporting missing cars. In response to the rising number of car thefts, our law enforcement agencies have become creative.
Two law enforcement groups that have persistently drawn attention to the car theft problem are the Western States Auto Theft Investigators and the King County Police Chiefs Association. Both groups have been involved in tracking and sharing information on auto theft with all police agencies in King County for a number of years. For 2005, the King County Police Chiefs Association auto theft committee is being chaired by Kirkland Police Captain Greg Edwards together with King County Sheriff’s Office Chief Scott Somers and Federal Way Police Chief Anne Kirkpatrick. This year’s focus for the committee is on working with police agencies to better process stolen vehicle recoveries and to improve crime intelligence sharing on car theft trends and the identification of high-impact car thieves. Renton Police Detective Robert Onishi, a long-time leader in combating auto theft, will head an effort to develop “best practices” for the recovery and processing of stolen vehicles.
In addition, police agencies across the County, such as the Seattle Police Department, the Bellevue Police Department and the Kirkland Police Department have acquired new technology and are adopting new strategies to curb the car thieves. These efforts include:
* “Bait cars” that are outfitted with satellite tracking equipment as well as hidden cameras that film and record car thieves at the wheel of the car. Once a bait car is stolen, police can shut down the engine of the car and lock the thief inside until law enforcement arrives.
* Targeting a “top 10 list” of high-impact, serial offenders for arrest and prosecution. Police intelligence confirms that many of the car thefts are caused by a few high-impact, serial offenders who steal cars at each opportunity. Working with the prosecutor to aggressively investigate and prosecute these offenders takes them out of circulation.
* Using new scanning technology that allows police to immediately scan license plates of cars on the street against a database of stolen vehicle reports. With this technology police can instantly identify stolen cars and speed up their recovery.
* Using crime scene investigation technology to assist in the identification of car thieves. With forensic science technology police can process a recovered vehicle to obtain fingerprints, or, in some cases, DNA, to identify the car thief.
It is now time to join with these law enforcement efforts and to undertake more aggressive prosecution of these cases.