The News Room [News Release]

Sheriff Contact: John Roach: 313-224-0615
Release Date: Thursday, April 1, 2003

Sheriff adds Highland Park auto theft unit --- Tiny city ranks 5th highest in Michigan for stolen vehicles

According to the Auto Theft Prevention Authority of Michigan [MATPA], the city of Highland Park has the fifth highest rate of auto theft in the state, ranking behind only Detroit, Flint, Dearborn and Warren.

Highland Park’s relatively small population of approximately 16,000 means it may lead the state in per-capita auto theft. In 2001, the last year for which numbers were recorded for Highland Park, there were 874 cars reported stolen. In the past four months, the Sheriff’s Highland Park officers have recovered more than 100 stolen vehicles.

To help get at the root of this problem, Wayne County Sheriff Warren Evans announced today that he has created a fulltime unit to deal exclusively with auto thefts and related crimes.

“Auto theft has been chronic in Highland Park for some time and is a very serious quality of life issue,” Evans said. “The purpose of this new unit will be to reduce auto theft crime by addressing the initial theft, as well as the illegal businesses that create the demand for stolen parts.”

Evans said that the two-officer unit would deal with auto theft on several fronts:

• Responding to all reports of stolen vehicles
• Recovering stolen vehicles
• Conducting surveillance to catch car thieves
• Build cases on auto theft rings and chop shops that operate in the city.

The Sheriff’s Office received a $154,865 grant from the Michigan State police to fund the new unit. A third officer, paid from a separate grant has been assigned to the Western Wayne Auto Theft Team, which recently broke a Highland Park chop shop.

Evans expects that having officers that follow up on each reported theft will eventually lead to investigations that will lead to the arrests of the chop shop operators that fuel the auto theft business.

“It is definitely a business,” Evans said. “We are finding more and more that kids as young as 13 and 14 are being recruited to steal the vehicles because they likely will face less serious punishment since they are juveniles. Because they don’t know how to drive, they more frequently end up crashing the vehicles when they attempt to elude officers.”

Michigan’s most popular vehicles for car thieves

• Jeep Cherokee
• Dodge Intrepid
• Dodge Stratus
• Chrysler Sebring
• Dodge Intrepid
• Pontiac Grand Am
• Dodge Neon
• Plymouth Voyager
• Dodge Stratus
• Chevrolet Caprice

[Source: MATPA]

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