Police launch campaign to stem rising vehicle thefts
Lock it or lose it.
That’s the message city police and the Alberta Motor Association have for Calgary’s motorists as a new auto theft awareness campaign was launched Wednesday morning at Sunridge Mall.
“Alberta has become the province with the dubious distinction of the highest incidence of vehicle theft in all of Canada,” said the AMA’s Jeff Kasbrick.
“We owe it to ourselves to do something about this.”
An average of 62 vehicles are stolen per day in the province — three times the national average.
In Calgary, 5,700 cars and trucks were stolen within city limits last year — averaging about 16 per day.
More than 13,000 instances of valuables stolen from vehicles were reported to police in 2017, or 36 per day.
“Remove your valuables, lock your vehicles, take your keys with you and be auto-theft aware,” he said.
The campaign, described by Kasbrick as a call to action for all Albertans, urges motorists to not make themselves easy targets for thieves.
The message behind the campaign isn’t a new one, said Insp. Joe Brar, who heads the city police’s investigative bureau.
“Since 2015, we’ve been dealing with a steady increase in the numbers of stolen vehicles,” he said, describing the city’s stolen vehicle epidemic as a grave public safety concern.
“It’s the initial theft of the vehicle that’s putting everybody at risk — the offenders are taking these vehicles and demonstrating extremely unsafe driving behaviours.”
As well, Brar said most of the stolen cars are used as a means to commit other crimes in the city.
Efforts to stem the rising tide of auto theft in the city prompted police to reinstate a dedicated task force last August.
A revamped version for the High Enforcement Auto Theft Team, which was decommissioned in 2015, the Auto Theft Resource Team (ATRT) uses a combination of targeted investigation and covert surveillance to target city car thieves.
These efforts, Brar said, have made a difference.
“We are seeing great results from that, in targeting our prolific offenders,” he said.
“But that’s only one part of our auto theft strategy — the other part is educating the public and working with the public, to prevent these from happening.”
Despite ongoing public information campaigns by Calgary police and other groups, instances of cars stolen with the keys inside continue to increase.
“Vehicle theft is not only a headache — you also have to deal with the process of a claim,” Kasbrick said.
“We need to be aware of the entire cost of vehicle theft, and if there is a way to put a dent in this, why wouldn’t we?”