QOTD: Shouldn't We All Be a Little Bit Less Worried About Those Stolen Volkswagen Diesels?
I have to admit I’ve been following the story of the looted diesel Volkswagens with more than a healthy amount of interest. These cars are showing up hundreds of miles away, covered by bogus titles, maybe with involvement from various nefarious officials. Clearly this is an American version of a Guy Ritchie heist film or something.
The absolute weirdest and least believable part of the whole thing, however, has nothing to do with the theft of the cars. Rather, it’s in the police response.
I don’t know exactly how the police handle a report of a stolen car in Detroit, but I can tell you how the Franklin County Sheriff handles a report of a brand-new and reasonably expensive car-hauler trailer: they stop by the scene, run your driver’s license, and take a report. That’s it. There’s no CSI: Auto Theft Division action. The area is not swept for fingerprints. They don’t bring in any dogs or psychics. Matthew McConaughey and Woody Harrelson don’t keep working the case 20 years later. It’s basically, “Hey man, sorry your stuff got stolen, let us know if you find it.”
Now imagine that you’ve called the police for a stolen car and they show up and the conversation goes like so:
Cop: You want to report a stolen car?
You: Yeah. I had it parked out behind the house because I was going to junk it and sell the parts when I had time.
Cop: Wait a minute. You called to report a stolen car that you were going to have junked?
You: Yeah. I mean, some of those used parts were gonna be worth something.
Cop: What do you expect us to do?
You: I’m thinking that you’ll get the FBI and the state police for Kentucky involved. Other states, too.
Cop: looks at partner, nods, takes Taser from belt
You get the idea. Under no circumstances in the world would the police give a damn about YOUR stolen car that was going to be sold for parts. Particularly if you just had it sitting around in a stadium parking lot. But somehow this VW theft is the biggest caper since Bradley Cooper or whatever his name was jumped out of a jetliner.
So, what’s really going on here? And what do you think is going to happen in the end?
More by Jack Baruth
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How about we give these cars to people in Houston that were under water? Side note... but hurricane related: during Irma I noticed several car dealerships in my area of S FL emptied their lots - moving inventory somewhere to protect it. How did they pull this off? Where did those cars hide? We are talking hundreds, if not thousands of cars that just disappeared for a few days, then magically reappeared. Transporters can only move like 8 cars at a time.
In 1994 I was living in the tiny town of Winnebago IL, when some knob stole the hood ornament off of my banana yellow 82 240d. One year later a cop knocked on my door and presented me with my ornament. It was among the goodies found in a local kids bedroom when it was raided for drugs. When I asked how they knew it was mine he responded "Your the only guy who ever lived around here with one of those things so it wasn't hard to guess". Fame has its perks.