A Nissan dealership in Northeast Calgary is still reeling from the theft of 14 new vehicles off of its lot over the weekend. Staff first noticed the missing vehicles during an inventory count, and by Tuesday evening had increased the count from 12 to 14 missing vehicles according to posts by employees at the dealership on our forums.
Sunridge Nissan secures all of its keys like many other dealerships, but the thieves were able to gain entry to the dealership with a set of keys to the main doors. Police are not saying how the thieves were able to gain access to the keys. What they are saying is that it was organized enough that the vehicles were likely driven off the lot one at a time over several hours to avoid drawing attention.
The vehicles that were stolen include several 2011 Nissan Titan, Nissan Pathfinder, Nissan Frontier and Nissan Rogues as well as a couple 2012 Nissan Altimas. The VINs have been flagged and cannot be registered. Police are asking the public to be vigilant when purchasing any of the vehicles listed but such a large theft means the vehicles are likely headed out of the province and possibly even the country already as parts.
So far, there are no signs of the vehicles popping up in our Used Vehicle Marketplace but Calgary Police are likely already monitoring them along with other online classifieds in case they do show up.
Update: Calgary Police have recovered two of the stolen vehicles, a pair of Nissan Titans were found abandoned in a parking lot not far from the dealership.
Auto theft in the province dropped by 22 per cent in February despite thousands more cars on the roads during the 2010 Winter Olympic Games, officials said Monday. According to the provincial government, 730 cars were stolen in B.C. in February, down from the 940 vehicles stolen in the same month last year.
Car thieves and fencers of stolen property could face stiffer penalties under new legislation introduced by the federal government Tuesday targeting property crime.
Tonight CBC Calgary News continued their special series on auto theft, Hot Wheels. The first part covered the Calgary Police Service’s HEATT (High Enforcement Auto Theft Team) and the second part focused on the police helicopter, HAWCS. The third part was about the role of the internet and the role it plays in today’s increasingly connected world. Making another appearance was “The Claw”, an epic happy ending story where forum members helped track down a stolen Skyline.
The CBC News clip can be viewed below. Our famous President and Co-founder, rage2 makes an appearance as does Moderator Jaymez and forum member Envision.
A man has died from injuries suffered during an early morning arrest at a 24-hour car wash. Police from the auto theft unit were following a vehicle in unmarked police cruisers when the driver pulled into a car wash at 3:15am. Police decided to move in to make the arrest by blocking the vehicle in the car wash bay when the driver attempted to ram the police vehicles to escape.
“While attempting to arrest the occupant of the vehicle, a confrontation occurred and shots were fired by one of our police officers,” duty inspector Vic Trickett said.
“There was only one option here — stop the offender,” said John Dooks.
What made deadly force necessary, Dooks said, was that the driver of the car tried ramming police vehicles positioned on either side of the bay in an attempt to escape.
Nearby residents who heard squealing tires and gunshots called 911 only to be told that police were already on scene. It has not been confirmed, but early reports indicate that the man who was shot was behind the wheel of the car. The passenger in the vehicle was not injured.
There was no mention on whether or not the vehicle involved was a bait car but judging by how everything went down it is unlikely this was the case. Incidents like this are all the more reason for having a bait car system where officers can safely shut down the vehicle and make a safe arrest.
If you’ve spent any time at all on car forums, you are bound to have run into bait car videos. A bait car is a vehicle owned by the police that is intended to be stolen. They are generally models that have a high theft rate such as Ford F150s, Honda Civics, and Acura Integras. The bait cars are loaded with GPS tracking equipment, surveilance cameras and microphones. The most important technology inside a bait car is a device that allows police officers to remotely disable the vehicle allowing police to move in and apprehend the driver.
The Vancouver Police Department has been using bait cars with great success since December 2004. From Spring 2003 until Spring 2004, over 26,000 vehicles were stolen in the Vancouver area. Two years after the program started from Spring 2006 until Spring 2007, 17,000 vehicles were stolen. In just two years car theft dropped a staggering 35%.
The Calgary Police Department announced today it will be starting its own bait car program. Every day, an average of 17 vehicles are stolen off Calgary streets. The yearly hit to insurance companies is over $60M, and the insurance companies hope that the new bait car program will allow them to reduce premiums for motorists.
I think it is about time that Calgary gets its own bait car program with the amount of stolen cars we see reported on beyond every week. I look forward to seeing the videos that are posted by the Calgary Police to further discourage people from stealing cars.
If you’ve ever had something valuable stolen you’ll know the empty, violated feeling you get when you realize someone has taken off with something of yours. Well, if your name is York Heiden you would have felt that way TWICE in one day. You see, heiden’s Audi Quattro was stolen from him twice in the same day.
“I was speechless,” Heiden said, recalling how he stood where the car had been found, keys dangling from his fingers, the emotional high of finding the car dashed. “All I could do was hold the key up in my hand and look at it.”
There’s two lessons to be learned here. 1. Don’t leave your keys in the ignition and 2. If you’re gonna do something to disable the car from being stolen again, do it right. The good news is, after being stolen the second time, the police were able to recover Heiden’s Audi with some minor interior damage, and a broken headlight.
