It’s no secret Memphis, Tennessee has a serious crime problem. While homicides get plenty of attention and understandably so, car theft in the city is so out of control, leaders have struggled to deal with the issue, including violent carjackings. But even police cars aren’t safe from the theft trend.
Watch a stolen government SUV ram police cruisers in California.
Before the police car theft, officers were in a Memphis area after someone called to report a prowler outside an unoccupied house. A neighbor told WREG the suspect broke into the house and stole some items, then took her son’s bicycle off their front porch.
But the bike didn’t work as a getaway vehicle for long. As police arrived and started walking around, looking for the suspect, someone hopped into a cruiser and took off with it.
We’ve asked repeatedly why an aftermarket company doesn’t come up with a viable solution to make stealing first responder vehicles more difficult if not impossible. We see cases of stolen police cars, firetrucks, ambulances, etc. often.
Many of these vehicles are left with the keys inside, sometimes the engine idling. We understand why this is done, but the unfortunate truth is it leaves them as easy targets for the dishonest.
Whomever the suspect was, he drove the squad car several miles before crashing it in a wooded area. That person fled on foot and reportedly got away, even though police descended on the area and combed it.
There are a few scary aspects to someone stealing a police car. One is they could try impersonating an officer, although with modern tracking technology they wouldn’t have much of an opportunity to do such a thing.
More concerning is if a suspect took police equipment, including firearms, from a cruiser after stealing it. In this case police say that didn’t happen, but they think the suspect was already armed.
Image via WREG News Channel 3/YouTube
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