| During the Labor Day weekend, I came to Springfield to visit some friends before I started my drive out west to Seattle, WA. I was in Springfield for less than 24 hours before my car was stolen from the corner of Sumner and Longhill. Two days later, I woke up and looked out the window of my friend's apartment on Sumner Ave. to see two late model Acura Integras sitting on cinder blocks with all their wheels missing. One of the victims in that crime happened to be the neighbor and classmate of my friend. They both had moved into the complex only a week earlier. Everyone we talked to about the incident, from the police to the neighbors to school officials, seemed to be complacent. There seems to be no rage at the situation in Springfield. Well, I think the rampant auto theft in Springfield needs to be addressed. I decided to do some research on my own and see what is being done to address the auto theft problem. One of the first places I looked was on the Massachusetts State Police web site. I was excited to see that there actually are steps being taken to address this massive problem. The Governor's Auto Theft Strike Force is a program that they have enacted that states "If you give information that leads to the arrest of a car thief, or the location of a chop shop, you could receive a confidential cash reward of up to $10,000. All you need to do is call 1-800-HOT-AUTO. Auto theft is a serious and far-reaching crime that affects us all. Last year alone over thirty thousand cars were stolen in Massachusetts." I think it would be worthwhile to have a story about this problem and to post information about this program on news shows. Perhaps people will see this and pick up the phone to report these thugs to the police. Another interesting thing I ran across in my research was a program run by the Minneapolis Police department. They are using high tech techniques to catch car thieves and send them to jail. They are using bait cars to catch these thieves in the act. The cars are equipped with GPS tracking devices, kill switches, remote door locks and cameras/microphones. The cars are then placed on the streets of Minneapolis. When they are stolen, the police nab the thieves and send them to jail with the help of the video and audio evidence. So far, the conviction rate is 100%. If Springfield were able to start implementing such a program, the thefts would surely drop just like they did in Minneapolis. In closing, I would like to say that this event has really shaken me up. I was in the middle of moving to the west coast and the vehicle had numerous important items inside of it. The most important of which include my military records and my financial documents. I realize that these things will probably never be recovered. However, the more disappointing realization I had was that people really don't care. People don't care until it affects them and from what I saw during my week long stay in Springfield it is only a matter of time before each and every person in Springfield becomes a victim. Kevin M. Thomas Lt. USNR |
