Larry Lamb figured his 2000 Lexus GS sedan would be fine when he left it warming up in his Kent driveway to go back inside his house to grab his coat and briefcase.
“I wasn’t inside more than two minutes and I heard a thunk that sounded like a car door but I didn’t really think much about it,” Lamb said. “When I came out the door, the car was gone.”
Lamb likes to drive away from home in a warm car on cold winter days. He also lives at the end of about a 75-foot driveway, so it seemed his car would be safe when he left it sitting two years ago on that cold morning.
Police found the Lexus four days later abandoned at a Walgreens store in Renton. The car was OK, but the wallet and other items he had left inside the vehicle were gone.
The experience left him a changed man.
“I don’t leave my wallet in the car anymore,” said Lamb, who has lived 10 years in his East Hill home. “I don’t leave anything in view in the car. If they see stuff, they’re going to want to break in.”
Lamb isn’t the only Kent resident to experience the frustration of theft.
Kent Police report they’re continuing to see a steady monthly rate of vehicle thefts and prowls. Thieves stole 709 vehicles in Kent from January through November of this year.
That includes 305 stolen vehicles from the valley, 197 from the East Hill, 163 from the West Hill and 44 from Panther Lake, whose statistics started July 1 when the area annexed to the city.
Thieves broke into 1,000 vehicles from January through November. That includes 424 in the valley, 309 on the East Hill, 176 on the West Hill and 91 in Panther Lake (from July through November).
But you don’t have to just hope your car won’t be hit by prowlers – you can do something.
“Don’t be lazy – be vigilant,” said Sara Wood, a Kent Police community education specialist. “You leave an opportunity if you leave things in your car.”
After the theft of her purse and two days later her car, Ellen DeSelms always makes sure she empties the inside of her car and locks it while left in her East Hill driveway.
“I bring my purse inside the house and I no longer leave the garage door controls in the car so they cannot get into the house,” said DeSelms, who has lived 19 years in Kent.
DeSelms forgot to lock her car in the driveway two months ago after a trip to Costco. She left her purse in the glove compartment.
The next morning DeSelms noticed the glove compartment was open and her purse was gone. In the purse were keys for the two cars owned by DeSelms and her husband.
Two days later, someone returned and stole their 1993 Lexus sedan.
“We knew they had the keys, so we tried to block the cars in but they came back and stole one of them,” she said.
Police found the car 10 days later dumped at a back corner of a Renton apartment complex.
“They ripped out the stereo and left the car,” DeSelms said.
While Lamb and DeSelms had cars stolen from home driveways, police find more cars are stolen from apartment complexes, large retail parking lots and Metro Transit Park & Ride lots.
Kent Police officer Craig Lamp patrols the West Hill. He finds theft problems at the Kent-Des Moines Park & Ride lot, 23405 Military Road S., and the
Star Lake Park & Ride at 27015 26th Ave. S.
“They (thieves) target apartment complexes, park-and-ride lots and areas that have many vehicles,” Lamp said. “The Kent Station parking garage (downtown) gets pockets of thefts off and on.”
Lamp said the people who steal cars typically fall into one of three groups – semiprofessionals, drug users and teenagers.
“The semiprofessionals steal cars, strip the parts and sell the stolen parts,” Lamp said. “Then there are the drug users who use the car for transportation or exchange the car for money or drugs. Then you have the juveniles who steal cars for a joy ride and then dump them.”
Anti-theft devices like The Club, which attaches to the steering wheel, really do work, according to Lamp.
“Anything that causes extra work to steal they tend to look past,” he said. “They will go to another car.”
Kent, of course, is not alone in the fight against vehicle thefts.
The Legislature in 2007 formed the Washington Auto Theft Prevention Authority, a statewide group aimed at reducing auto thefts across the region. The group includes a South King County task force of Kent and neighboring cities that hires detectives from local police agencies to investigate vehicle thefts.
“The car-theft task has done a lot of good work,” Lamp said.
But even a task force can’t stop every theft. It didn’t surprise the Lamp that DeSelms and Lamb had cars stolen right out of their driveways.
“There are thieves who drive around in a car with somebody else looking for people warming up their car,” he said. “When they see a car empty, they drop the other person off.
“You wouldn’t think of that because most people are honest. But there are people cruising the neighborhoods looking for that.”
DeSelms won’t forget her experience.
“We’ve been thinking about putting up a security camera for the driveway,” she said.
Lamb stays close to his car if it’s running in the driveway.
“What I do now is start it up, but I watch from my window,” he said. “The car is not out of my sight.”
For more information about crime prevention, call the Kent Police community-education unit. For the West Hill and Valley, call Sara Wood at 253-856-5851. For the East Hill and Panther Lake, call Stacy Judd at 253-856-5883.
Kent vehicle prowls
(Jan. 1 to Nov. 30, 2010)
1,000 thefts
• East Hill: 309
• West Hill: 176
• Valley: 424
• Panther Lake: 91
Kent vehicle thefts
(Jan. 1 to Nov. 30, 2010)
709 stolen vehicles
• East Hill: 197
• West Hill: 163
• Valley: 305
• Panther Lake: 44
Note: Panther Lake numbers from July 1 when area annexed to city
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