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A half-dozen pairs of headlights are easing into a loose formation behind a
late-model import sedan on a freeway outside Modesto, California, where a
moonless February night has settled in with a penetrating chill. The trailing
vehicles move at posted speeds, silp among the lanes gently, and try to remain
camouflaged among the surrounding traffic. A few miles back, an older Honda is
straining at what feels like 90 mph, zigzagging around cars in an effort to
catch up. A laptop computer lights the faces of the Stanislaus County probate
officer at the wheel and the semi-terrified car-magazine editor next to her.
"Are you ready? Do you know what to do? Are you READY?!"
Officer Donna Kniess glances at me as I grip the laptop, its screen flickering
with a street map of Modesto and a moving blip representing the sedan. As
instructed, I key in the command "ignition off" and move the mouse pointer over
the "send" button. Hours of tedium have culminated in these few seconds, the
built-up tension releasing with enough amps to weld steel. I cinch my seatbelt.
Up ahead the blackness is suddenly pierced by the red-and-blue wink of police
lights. A voice crackles over ther radio. "Shut it down. Shut it down NOW!"
Modesto is Spanish for "modest," fitting since this rusting agricultural
crossroads of more than 200,000 in California's wind-swept Central Valley east
of San Francisco holds few distinctions of which to boast. Besides being the
hometown of Star Wars creator George Lucas and the setting of Lucas's 1973
breakout film American Graffiti, Modesto is the car-theft capital of America.
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Or at least it was in 2003 and 2004, the latest years for which the rankings are
available from the National Insurance Crime Bureau. Modesto beat out the Las
Vegas, San Diego, and Seattle in car thefts per 100,000 residents, and cities in
the Great Central Valley - a hot zone of car boosting - swept five of the to 10
spots. Modesto stands a good chance of three-peating when the 2005 rankings are
released in August. The FBI notes that the 1692 car thefts reported last year in
Modesto were a 22-percent increase over those of 2004, even as auto theft
dropped 2.1 percent nationally.
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Modesto's problem is speed. Or crank. Or "goey." as some cll it. The farmlands
ringing the town are rife with methamphetamine labs, says CHP Lt. Jeff Morris,
the commander of the Stanislaus County Auto Theft Task Force (or StanCatt), a
multi-agency police group charged with reducing auto theft in Modesto and the
surrounding areas.
The prevalence of the quick grab for a car radio or other belongings is echoed
in Modesto's stolen-vehicle recovery rate of 95 percent, says Morris. Thieves
take what's in the cars and dump them, often on the same evening and withi3n a
few blocks of the crime. Although drivers here stand a better chance of getting
their cars back than in the rest of the U.S., which averages a 65-percent
recovery rate according to the insurance bureau, the cars are usually returned
damaged and cleaned out of valuables. The insurance industry says stolen autos
were worth $7.6 billion nationwide in 2004, but not everyone was covered. "A lot
of people can't afford comprehensive insurance," says Morris. "They don't have
other ways to get to work, so auto theft hits the community really hard here."
And it happens without much of a penalty. Classified as a nonviolent felony
(unless it's a carjacking), car theft typically earns the perpetrator just 12-
to 150 days in the clink, and it isn't subject to California's three-strikes
rule, meaning the sentence doesn't rise with each conviction.
"It's let's make a deal in the courthouse, and a few months later they're out,"
says Morris, "Almost all the guys we arrest have prior histories." He likens jail
time to going away to school, since theives use the opportunity to catch up on
the latest techniques from their colleagues.
In 2004, imitating a program developed in Minnesota, the CHP decided to go
fishing for thieves with bait cars. Nondescript vehicles are wired with hidden
cameras and a VCR, along with a GPS transponder and a remote control that uses
the cell-hone network to communicate with a master laptop computer. When a door,
trunk, of hood of the car is opened, the laptop is alerted and sounds a sort of
bugle call. StanCATT carries the laptop around in one of its undercover patrol
cars - mostly, civilian-looking pickups and SUV's - using it to track the bait
car's location and speed. Meanwhile, the onboard camera films a grainy black and
white image of the interior that will be used in court to identify the thief.
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When enough units are in position, including at least one marked police car
under ideal circumstances, the bait car is ordered to shut down, lock it's doors,
and, if necessary, honk it's horn. After that, the chase sometimes goes to foot
power with the preferred takedown weapon being a Taser, a non-lethal gun that
reduces victims, hit by it's 50,000-volt zap, to twitching blubber.
For obvious reasons, Morris doesn't want us to be specific about the bait cars
(figure popular brands and models, so no Citroens), or how many the CHP has, or
how often they are deployed. It's not ever day, as the bait cars are shared
among regions. When the cars come to Modesto, up to a dozen officers gear up for
the rush. In on 23-day period last November, StanCatt made 76 arrests.
The action typically doesn't start until sundown. While thieves sleep off the
previous night's speed binge, the bait cars are placed in strategic spots around
town - parking lots, on active car-theft streets - unlocked and with the keys in
the ignition and various inducements on the seats such as phones, purses, and
open bags of chips. Sometimes they are left idling. "We want thieves to take our
cars," says Morris, adding that bait cars are not considered entrapment because
the thieves do not have to take them.
Meanwhile, the StanCATTers circle the weedy neighborhoods of clapboard and
stucco bungalows, finding dumped vehicles, running suspicious plates, and
searching for the grand prize. A "rollin" stolen" is a stolen car actually being
driven by a perp. Those are rare, but Derrick Brackett, 37, a 12-year CHP
veteran of uniformed road patrol who now gets to dress like a Hells Angel as
part of his undercover gig, has a talent for spotting them. As he drives,
Brackett pours over the two-page, single-spaced list of the most recent stolen
cars.
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"We want them to think we never sleep," he says. Considering that StanCATTers
work 12-hour shifts and often go past 1 a.m. during bait-car pushes, it's not
far from the truth.
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The unit breaks for a dinner of tacos and burritos. The laptop, which is carried
into the restaurant, remains politely quiet for the next hour of so.
Then all hell breaks loose.
The first to go down is a gangly 21-year-old, nabbed quickly and quietly on a
residential street after filling the bait car's back seat with his tagging spray
cans.
"Is this a setup?" he asks, eyes blinking in the flashlight glare.
"What do you think?" says one of the five armed cops surrounding him.
Next is a slightly older dude, maybe late 20's, who makes it eight miles up the
freeway before the arresting units can be positioned. Called into volunteer
service by a shortage of hands in the Honda, I successfully hit the "send"
button, and the bait car stalls. The man is pulled out, whimpering. Later, the
videotape will show him grooving with Shania Twain in blissful ignorance right up
until the police lights come on. You almost feel sorry for the dope. Almost.
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Finally, in the wee hours, just as Morris is about to fold the operation for the
night, Brackett hits the jackpot. It's a rollin' stolen, a purple Chevy Suburban
that Brackett has been hunting for weeks. The three occupants turn out to be two
teenage girls and a scowling 20-something male. They're pulled out and quickly
handcuffed, and the suburban's back doors are flung open. It's loaded to the
gunwales with stereo equipment, VCRs, cell phones, toolboxes, stacks of personal
mail, credit cards and drivers' licenses, plus a few trips' worth of crystal
meth. Wiring spills out of the Chevy's dash as though someone has been
redesigning it with an ice pick.
If it were your Chevy, you'd want someone's head on a pick. And that's what
motivates the StanCatters, who sometimes feel like the Dutch boy with his TASER
in the dike. Modesto's car-theft rates continue to rise, but more deserving
individuals have been packed off to jail since the bait cars arrived. It may not
be for long in many cases, but it feels good all the same, says Officer Kniess
"When people become police officers, this is what they imagine it'll be like."
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