Auto thefts not what they seem

Two auto thefts over a two-week period would seem a low incidence in 33 Division, which saw a high number last year.

But having none is even better.

According to Det. Sgt. Jim Gotell, that was actually the case.

During a community meeting, he said both cases reported between May 15 and 28 were actually a result of people thinking their cars had been stolen, when they had actually forgotten they had parked somewhere else. Although there was no criminal action involved, these incidents still count in crime stats as auto thefts.

“You call and say your house was broken into, we come out and start a report and you say ‘oh wait a minute my house didn’t get broken into, my wife forgot her keys and she smashed the window to get into the house, I guess it wasn’t a break and enter.’ We can make that go away, but we can’t with auto theft,” Gotell said.

“For some reason with auto theft, once someone calls and says the car has been stolen, even if we find it, it still counts against us as a stat.”

Because of this, the number of auto thefts is always inflated in comparison to how many actual cases there have been. And considering they have four or five a month, Gotell says he wishes he could just have them removed from the overall stats.

“We didn’t have to do anything, we just found the car and they said ‘Oh, I parked it on the wrong street,’” he said with a bit of a laugh. “It drives me crazy.”