Police step up efforts to put the brakes on Calgary auto thefts

Calgary police are beefing up resources to combat a rising problem with vehicle thefts.

Police said Thursday that one of the service’s five district operations teams will focus exclusively on auto theft.

“This team will continue to work closely with members of the Auto Theft Resource Team (ATRT), as well as the Prolific Offender Engagement Team (POET), to investigate auto thefts in the city and target known prolific auto theft offenders,” Calgary police said in a news release Thursday.

“The other four (district operations teams) will continue to focus on all emerging trends, and will still be involved with investigating auto thefts as they were before.”

Police say the formal connection between the district operations team and the auto theft resource team will create a more co-ordinated approach to addressing auto thefts.

“This collaborative strategy is expected to have a substantial impact on stolen vehicles and related crimes, as was the result when the break and enter teams were centralized,” the release stated.

The service noted Calgary saw a “drastic increase” in propertyrelated crimes in the city in 2015, including stolen vehicles.

In the first half of 2017, there were 2,998 stolen vehicle occurrences in Calgary — an increase of 13 per cent from the same period in 2016, and 48 per cent more than the five-year average.

On average, 19 vehicles were stolen each day in Calgary in the second quarter of this year. In the past two months, police have seen some improvement in the number of vehicle thefts, with month-over-month decreases of nine per cent in June and six per cent in July.

Calgary’s district operations teams are mandated to reduce crime in the city by focusing on prominent crime trends and carrying out covert operations to address them, police said.

The teams have recently been focused on auto thefts, break and enters, and other property-related crimes.