SUV Owner Stabs Alleged Wheel Thief To Death

People have had enough of all the theft.

Not only is car theft out of control these days, so is the theft of valuable parts off cars, like catalytic converters. There have been plenty of incidents of people taking the law into their own hands lately, but one of the more shocking comes via Long Island, New York where a stabbed a someone who allegedly was stealing the wheels off his Toyota Highlander.

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Per a report from ABC7 NY, 28-year-old Alvarenga Mejia spotted three men allegedly trying to steal the wheels off his Toyota at 1:30 am on May 13. The man grabbed a large kitchen knife and went outside, eventually stabbing one of the suspects multiple times before all three of them ran away. However, 22-year-old Luis Pena, who lived in the Bronx, later died at the hospital.

Mejia apparently already dealt with thieves stealing the catalytic converter from his Highlander only two months prior. We’re guessing the guy was furious about how much that set him back, which is completely understandable. And if Long Island is like a lot of other places, police likely just took a report and that was it. Even the theft of an entire car is treated like not a huge deal in many police departments.

You can blame a deluge of more serious, violent crimes for this attitude. It could also be fueled by hostility toward police for the past three years as well as funding pulled, making it harder for cops to keep up with growing crime like property theft.

We’re not condoning what Mejia did, but we also get why he and other people are so frustrated. After all, you work hard day after day, pay your taxes, and some crook comes along and costs you a bunch of money because they don’t want to work an honest job. And nobody seems to care.

Again, we’re not saying that justifies killing someone, but we’ve seen more people tracking down their stolen car and getting into shootouts as well as other vigilante situations. This seems to be a growing problem, one that politicians and other leaders on the municipal, state, and federal level can’t ignore forever.