The News Room [News Release]
Sheriff Contact: John Roach: 313-213-5162
Release Date: Monday, May 1, 2006
Sheriff Evans pushes stronger law to curb auto theft
Frustrated by a law that he says has no teeth to combat the "chop shops" that fuel the state's auto theft problem, as well as other illegal fencing operations, Wayne County Sheriff Warren C. Evans has taken his cause to Lansing. Yesterday, at Evans' request, Sen. Alan Cropsey (R-DeWitt) introduced a bill that would make it easier for police agencies throughout the state to bust those illegal enterprises by posing as individuals claiming to have stolen property to unload.
At issue has been a provision in state law that, Evans says, ties the hands of law enforcement by requiring that any items represented as stolen while being sold to a fence, actually be stolen.
"It's been a Catch-22 for years because if the items actually are stolen, then we as law enforcement can't sell them, even for the purposes of an investigation," Evans said. "So the question then became, ‘how do you catch a fence, chop shop operator or pawn shop owner red-handed whose clear intent is to receive stolen property?' I believe changing the law is the answer."
Under Cropsey's bill the law would be modified to read that a person, "knowing or having reasonable cause to believe" that money, goods or property are stolen, embezzled or converted, shall be guilty of a crime. In other words, if an undercover officer tells a chop shop operator that the 20-inch chrome rims he borrowed from an auto supply store are really stolen and he needs to unload them, then the individual would be committing a crime if he buys the rims because he believed them to be stolen property.
Last year, Evans announced a new initiative to cut auto theft in Wayne County, called Arresting Car Thieves In Our Neighborhoods, or ACTION, a multi-faceted regional approach to deal with auto theft. Since that time, sheriff's deputies, often working with police agencies in neighboring counties, have raided several chop shops, recovered scores of stolen cars and made scores more arrests of suspected car thieves.
Evans, who will be in Lansing next week to testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee on the need for the law change, said that although the genesis of his idea was to cut the rate of auto theft in Wayne County, which is the highest in the state, the new language will help police agencies throughout the state dealing with any illegal enterprises who regularly receive stolen property.
The change also has the support of County Executive Robert A. Ficano, who also served as sheriff for 20 years.
"Mr. Ficano and I agree that the bottom line for us is to reduce theft in its many forms by going after the people who buy stolen goods because they create the demand," Evans said. "This change in the law will help us go after pawn shop owners who knowingly sell stolen goods and even some Internet-based operations we've seen. This will be a great tool for law enforcement throughout the state."
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