Residents warned to practice caution when parking cars, locking bikes
CITYWIDE It was going to be a hectic day for Joselynne Boschen, a personal trainer and clothing designer who had five clients to see, the first at 6:30 a.m.
As she darted down the stairs of her apartment building to the garage, she noticed that she forgot her cell phone, and her house keys. Locked out of her apartment, she headed to her truck, where she kept a spare set of keys.
That’s when she noticed her truck was missing. She rushed to the Public Safety Facility to file a stolen vehicle report and then ran back to her apartment to grab her beach cruiser and pedal to her next appointment, having missed three clients already.
But when she got home, her bike was missing too, as was the spare she kept for guests. Talk about bad luck.
“I was like, ‘This must be a joke,’” Boschen, 25, said when she saw her bikes missing.
It wasn’t. Boschen, who lives at Fourth Street and Montana Avenue, had become a victim of theft — twice in one day.
“It was frustrating,” Boschen said. “I live in what I thought was a good neighborhood, but I guess this shows that you can be a victim anywhere.”
With gas prices as high as they are, more Santa Monicans are choosing to leave their cars parked in favor of using their bikes to get around town. While that is better for the environment and the pocketbook, it opens the door for thieves. Cars are left unattended longer and there are more bikes on the streets (some left unlocked), creating opportunities for crooks to strike.
There have been 132 reports of stolen vehicles as of July 31, down from the 196 stolen during the same period last year. Of those, 97 have been recovered, according to the Santa Monica Police Department.
When it comes to bicycles, the numbers are up.So far this year 146 bicycles have been stolen, a considerable jump from last year when there were 87 reports filed from Jan.1 to July 31,2007.
Police are warning people to be more aware about where they park their cars and how they lock up their bicycles, calling on owners to take measures that will cut down on the likelihood of becoming victims.
Sgt. Renaldi Thruston, the SMPD’s public information officers, said the obvious safety measure is to ensure all doors are locked when leaving a car parked.
“Don’t keep a spare key hidden in or about the vehicle, possibly use a Club or consider installing an ignition kill switch,” Thruston suggested. “Installing an alarm that activates automatically upon locking your doors is also a good safety measure.”
Drivers can also go a step further and purchase the LoJack System, a mobile tracking device that is activated the moment a car is stolen, allowing police to track the path of the vehicle. Law enforcement tracks down the car and those who stole it.
While LoJack is not a deterrent (it is so small owners oftentimes don’t know where it is located), Thruston said it does help tremendously in finding cars and returning them to their owners.
Roughly 80 percent of vehicles stolen in Santa Monica are recovered, often by other agencies. Some are returned with minimal damage while others are completely stripped, forcing owners to sign the car over to the tow truck company that transported the vehicle after officers run the plates and discover it stolen. Owners are responsible for the cost of storing of the vehicle at the tow yard.
Boschen’s truck was recovered a few days after it was stolen, detectives telling her that several trucks like hers were targeted in Santa Monica, the crooks making keys to fit in similar ignitions. Boschen was grateful to get the truck back, which had several cigarette burns in the seats, but it doesn’t run the same. Plus, the feeling that a stranger was sitting in her driver’s seat doesn’t sit well with her.
“At this point, I’d rather have them take it because I don’t want to drive it anymore,” she said. “It feels weird, and it’s not operating the same. Besides, somebody could just come and take it again. The fact that they took it out of my garage, right down stairs, it’s unsettling.”
When anyone reports a vehicle stolen, the license plate number, make, model and color are entered into a database that all law enforcement agencies in the state have access to. Most cars are recovered when they are left abandoned or parked illegally. A parking attendant or officer will run the plates or the vehicle identification number and discover the car was reported stolen.
“Sometimes there are rings, where thieves will head out looking for particular cars for their parts or to ship them oversees, especially if they are expensive models, other times it is just for joyriding, some youths or anyone wanting to take it for a ride to the beach,” Thruston said.
According to the “Hot Wheels” report released in July by the National Insurance Crime Bureau, the most popular car to steal is the 1995 Honda Civic, followed by the 1991 Honda Accord, the 1989 Toyota Camry and the 1997 Ford F-150, a truck. The only other domestic brands on the list were also trucks — the 1994 Chevrolet C/K 1500 and the 2004 Dodge Ram Pickup.
Other perennial favorites among thieves include the Acura Integra and Nissan Sentra. According to the bureau, thieves continue to target these older vehicles because they provide the best market for stolen vehicle parts.
The bureau encourages everyone to follow what it calls a “layered approach” to auto theft protection by employing simple, low-cost suggestions to make vehicles less attractive to thieves. The four layers include common sense, a warning device, an immobilizing device, and a tracking device.
PEDAL POWER When it comes to bikes, a tracking device probably isn’t practical for most riders given that the majority do not own expensive two-wheelers. However, there are those who purchase custom bikes that can cost as much as $6,000 or more, making them a hot commodity for thieves looking to resell them or chop them up and sell the parts.
The SMPD receives roughly 30 stolen bikes each month and stores them in the property/evidence room until the owner comes to collect it, or they are auctioned off or donated to the Salvation Army after 90 days, said Johnny Tarasut, who manages the property room. SMPD typically makes anywhere from $5,000 to $10,000 auctioning off property on a Web site, www.propertyroom.com. The money goes into City Hall’s general fund.
A 21-year-veteran, Tarasut said he notices more bikes coming in during the summer months when people are active and like to be outdoors.
“We get all kinds of bikes,but mostly beach cruisers. Those are really popular,” Tarasut said. “We get mountains bikes, the hybrids, but we don’t see many of the street racers that require people to use special shoes and stuff. Those folks usually take care of their bikes.”
Thruston recommends that all bike riders should register their two-wheelers with City Hall by filling out a form that requires the serial number, make and model of the bike as well as its frame and wheel size. The cost is $3 and it’s the law. The serial number is entered into a system that is accessible by law enforcement. When a stolen bike is recovered, officers enter in the serial number and are able to contact the owner. Those who are not registered have to routinely check in to see if their bike has been recovered.
“It’s also important to list anything that’s special on the bike, if you added something to it,” Tarasut said.
The most important thing is to record the serial number on the bike, which can be tricky for some people.
“We had one woman who could not find the serial number, so what she did was engrave her driver’s license number on the frame and we were able to locate it with that,” Tarasut said.
Bike thefts are common because there are so many ways to crack a lock. Some have been known to use liquid nitrogen to make the lock brittle and then use a hammer to smash it. Others use curbs as leverage and pry open a lock attached to a parking meter.
Though it’s never safe to leave a bicycle unattended and unlocked regardless of the location, there are hot spots for thefts in the city to avoid, such as the beach from Malibu down to Venice, low pedestrian traffic areas like alleys, and high vehicular traffic areas such as Wilshire and Santa Monica boulevards where many thieves know they can find a bike left on top of a car roof or inside one.
Another popular theft destination is Santa Monica College, where many students opt to use bicycles as their means of transportation rather than cars.
“People will go into a store and do some shopping,and they’ll be gone only for 10 minutes or less, but unfortunately that is all some people need to steal a bike,” Tarasut said.
The police recommend getting a U-lock made of hardened steal and to lock bikes up in places where there are lots of people passing by. It is also good to lock up bikes to city-installed racks and not to trees or poles.
Very few bikes are returned to their owners, Thruston said.
Boschen’s truck was recovered, but she isn’t holding out much hope that she’ll get her bikes back. She was lucky a few months ago when her bike was stolen for the first time. An ex-boyfriend spotted someone riding it and got it back.
“It had a huge, pink basket on it and there was this big dude riding it so that kind of stuck out,” Boschen said. “You could tell it didn’t belong to the guy.”
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on August 25, 2008. Read the original PDF.