DrJones
06-22-2004, 03:38 PM
As some of you already know, my SI was stolen last Thursday. It appears that the theifs finally ran out of modified SIs to take, and they realized there was no chance in hell they were getting Alex's, so they came after mine.
The interesting thing about this whole ordeal, and why I didn't post it Thursday, is that I have the car in my posession right now.
The night before it was stolen, Wednesday, it appears they broke into the car. It was sitting outside my place, and the next morning when I got into the car, I noticed that the arm rest was open. I thought this was wierd, since I never open it, and couldn't realy think of a way that i could of bumped it open or anything. I thought for a second that someone might of been in my car during the night, but at the time blew it off since the doors were still locked and the car was still there. Now it appears they got into it and were looking for a key or security system or something.
Well the next day, I woke up, got ready to go to work, walked outside and it was gone. I checked to make sure it didn't roll anywhere, and shortly realized it was stolen. Called the cops at about 9:30 in the morning and reported it. The Arapahoe sherrif was shortly at my door ready to take a statement. They also said that they activated the Lojack system my car had installed. I learned later that they didn't activate it right away, and it took about 15 minutes.
So the cop gets to my house and says that the good news is that the lojack becon is going, the bad news is that there is one ONE vehicle in their 'group' (not sure if it's a district or whatever, the local area) that has lojack equiped and can pick up the signal. And that guy doesn't normally get in till noon. :rolleyes:
I was a little dissapointed at this point. Especially when the cop said he used to work on recovery for stolen vehicles, and hadn't really have a lojack equiped vehicle they have found. Well for some reason the guy who had the lojack car was in the area and came in early that day. A few minutes later they got a lojack signal near the area. The cop taking the statement took off and went to join up with the guy with the lojack car, and another who was in the area. Shortly later they found the car in a paking garage for an apartment complext just a few blocks away. They quickly left and called in some unmarked vehicles to sit on it and wait for whoever ditched it there to return.
Eventually they impounded the vehicle, took it in, dusted it (found nothing) and returned it too me.
It appears to be in good shape, other than the steering column being punched. I was amazed to see that from what it looks like (haven't checked fully) that my cds, check books, and other things I had in the car were stll there.
According to the investingating officer (and Tobi) the theifs will steal cars, park them somewhere a little ways away, and sit on them. If someone finds them and picks them up, via lojack or whatever, then they obviously don't get it. But if no one comes to get the car in 24-48 hours, then chances are it's not being tracked and they will go back and get it.
Ok, so did the lojack work? Somewhat. Yes it helped them find my car, but if the car wasn't in the area (like it seems like most the cars lost on this board were) it wouldn't of helped much. In some way it did help them find it, but since it was ditched, and goign to be there a while, chances are they would of anyway. In fact, the officer who came over said that earlier that morning, he ran the plates on a car in an apartment complex that sounded really familiar to mine. I never found out if that was my car he came across earlier or not (at that point it wasn't recorded as stolen) but it was very very close to the house that they left it. It was also a little bad to hear how scarce it is to find a lojack equiped car. The people selling me lojack made it sound like the trackers are everywhere. But it looks like if your car is stolen at the wrong time, in the wrong area, or on the wrong day, than you might be SOL. I would expect them to have at least one lojack equiped car in all districts at all times.
So yes, it might of helped, and in this case probably did. But i'd feel much safer ditching it for a GPS type system (like skyspy) that no special hardware is needed to track.
I'm also gratefull that they did recover the car. They obviously did their job. But I am a little sad that they didn't sit on it longer. They said they watched it for 3 hours. Well i'm not crime expert. But if you pretty much know that they are ditching it there so they can come back later and claim it, would it be worth it to watch it for more than 3 hours before you grab it? I would of been a little disapointed if the car wasn't found, but I would be very very happy if they actually caught the group responsible for taking it. There are so many cars stolen around here that putting a few of them in jail would be much more important to me than getting my car back in a timly manner (which they didn't do anyway, I just got it back today (tuesday)).
Their repsonse for not sitting on it would probably be that it wouldn't be very effective or too expensive or whatever. But chances are the people doign this are going to steal lots more cars and tie up lot sof time in reports or something. I'm amazed that they don't even have little gps devices they can rig a car with in < 5 minutes so that they don't have to be sitting there watching it to still track it.
So to sum it up, yes i'm happy they got it back, and that the lojack helped, but other circumstances that might not of been the case, and I am quite disapointed they didn't try harder to catch those responsible.
On a related note, who has the hookup for alarms?
The interesting thing about this whole ordeal, and why I didn't post it Thursday, is that I have the car in my posession right now.
The night before it was stolen, Wednesday, it appears they broke into the car. It was sitting outside my place, and the next morning when I got into the car, I noticed that the arm rest was open. I thought this was wierd, since I never open it, and couldn't realy think of a way that i could of bumped it open or anything. I thought for a second that someone might of been in my car during the night, but at the time blew it off since the doors were still locked and the car was still there. Now it appears they got into it and were looking for a key or security system or something.
Well the next day, I woke up, got ready to go to work, walked outside and it was gone. I checked to make sure it didn't roll anywhere, and shortly realized it was stolen. Called the cops at about 9:30 in the morning and reported it. The Arapahoe sherrif was shortly at my door ready to take a statement. They also said that they activated the Lojack system my car had installed. I learned later that they didn't activate it right away, and it took about 15 minutes.
So the cop gets to my house and says that the good news is that the lojack becon is going, the bad news is that there is one ONE vehicle in their 'group' (not sure if it's a district or whatever, the local area) that has lojack equiped and can pick up the signal. And that guy doesn't normally get in till noon. :rolleyes:
I was a little dissapointed at this point. Especially when the cop said he used to work on recovery for stolen vehicles, and hadn't really have a lojack equiped vehicle they have found. Well for some reason the guy who had the lojack car was in the area and came in early that day. A few minutes later they got a lojack signal near the area. The cop taking the statement took off and went to join up with the guy with the lojack car, and another who was in the area. Shortly later they found the car in a paking garage for an apartment complext just a few blocks away. They quickly left and called in some unmarked vehicles to sit on it and wait for whoever ditched it there to return.
Eventually they impounded the vehicle, took it in, dusted it (found nothing) and returned it too me.
It appears to be in good shape, other than the steering column being punched. I was amazed to see that from what it looks like (haven't checked fully) that my cds, check books, and other things I had in the car were stll there.
According to the investingating officer (and Tobi) the theifs will steal cars, park them somewhere a little ways away, and sit on them. If someone finds them and picks them up, via lojack or whatever, then they obviously don't get it. But if no one comes to get the car in 24-48 hours, then chances are it's not being tracked and they will go back and get it.
Ok, so did the lojack work? Somewhat. Yes it helped them find my car, but if the car wasn't in the area (like it seems like most the cars lost on this board were) it wouldn't of helped much. In some way it did help them find it, but since it was ditched, and goign to be there a while, chances are they would of anyway. In fact, the officer who came over said that earlier that morning, he ran the plates on a car in an apartment complex that sounded really familiar to mine. I never found out if that was my car he came across earlier or not (at that point it wasn't recorded as stolen) but it was very very close to the house that they left it. It was also a little bad to hear how scarce it is to find a lojack equiped car. The people selling me lojack made it sound like the trackers are everywhere. But it looks like if your car is stolen at the wrong time, in the wrong area, or on the wrong day, than you might be SOL. I would expect them to have at least one lojack equiped car in all districts at all times.
So yes, it might of helped, and in this case probably did. But i'd feel much safer ditching it for a GPS type system (like skyspy) that no special hardware is needed to track.
I'm also gratefull that they did recover the car. They obviously did their job. But I am a little sad that they didn't sit on it longer. They said they watched it for 3 hours. Well i'm not crime expert. But if you pretty much know that they are ditching it there so they can come back later and claim it, would it be worth it to watch it for more than 3 hours before you grab it? I would of been a little disapointed if the car wasn't found, but I would be very very happy if they actually caught the group responsible for taking it. There are so many cars stolen around here that putting a few of them in jail would be much more important to me than getting my car back in a timly manner (which they didn't do anyway, I just got it back today (tuesday)).
Their repsonse for not sitting on it would probably be that it wouldn't be very effective or too expensive or whatever. But chances are the people doign this are going to steal lots more cars and tie up lot sof time in reports or something. I'm amazed that they don't even have little gps devices they can rig a car with in < 5 minutes so that they don't have to be sitting there watching it to still track it.
So to sum it up, yes i'm happy they got it back, and that the lojack helped, but other circumstances that might not of been the case, and I am quite disapointed they didn't try harder to catch those responsible.
On a related note, who has the hookup for alarms?