Jason MacLellan is feeling uneasy about living in his midtown Toronto neighbourhood and says he’s had trouble sleeping the past couple of nights. He’s been waking up every hour to check if his rental truck is still in the driveway after being the victim of auto theft last Thursday.
It’s the third time in less than two years MacLellan and his family have woken up to find their family vehicle gone.
“I’m exasperated. You feel victimized in terms of every time that you wake up in the morning, you’re like, ‘Hey, is my vehicle there?’
Video surveillance showed three men arriving in the driveway shortly after 5 a.m. before one opens the hood of the Jeep Wrangler Rubicon. The suspects smashed a back window to gain entry and within nine minutes, they had driven off with MacLellan’s SUV.
MacLellan explains there were AirTags hidden in the Jeep and a club locked to the steering wheel, something he did as a deterrent after the first time his Jeep was stolen in March 2022. That vehicle was never recovered.
“They took out some type of steel power saw and we see sparks fly in the vehicle,” he explained, referring to the surveillance video.
The husband and father of two said after calling police to report the Jeep stolen, he looked at his phone and tracked the vehicle to an address in Mississauga roughly 25 kilometres away. He and a friend drove to the address and could see the Jeep in a parking lot.
“We sat there for probably two hours. We found the vehicle at 9:30 a.m. and at about 11:30, we had an officer that had responded to it.”
MacLellan said the officer filed a report, and he drove the Jeep back to the dealership, where it’s now being fixed.
With the lease up in two years, MacLellan said he and his wife now want to get a vehicle that is less sought after by thieves.
Insp. Paul Rinkoff of the Toronto Police Service community partnerships and engagement unit said AirTags are helpful in recovering stolen vehicles but urges victims of auto theft to refrain from going to the location associated with the AirTag.
“At the end of the day, we’re talking about personal safety, and I wouldn’t want anyone to put themselves at risk in order to retrieve personal property,” Rinkoff said.
He said victims of auto theft are urged to call the Toronto police non-emergency number and provide the call taker with pertinent information gleaned from the AirTag.
Police also recommend car owners add an after-market product known as a “demobilizer” or so-called “kill switch” to their vehicles.
“They all effectively do the same thing: they stop the engine from starting so even though (the thieves) may have made a key, or they have a key to your car, they’re going to need maybe a six-digit code or another kind of transmitter to arm and disarm the mechanism that allows the car to start,” said Paul Seidman, the owner of Pre-lock Security Systems.
Toronto police say auto theft remains a top priority and they have seen a steep rise in cases over the past few years.
In 2023, 12,170 vehicles were reported stolen, up 24.4 per cent over 2022. In 2022, 9,785 vehicles were reported stolen, up 47 per cent over 2021.
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