There have been plenty of warnings about auto thefts in Saskatoon but here’s a story with a twist.
Imagine having your vehicle stolen then having to spend countless hours dealing with traffic tickets thanks to the thieves as they drive it around town.
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Medbh English has had quite the headache on her hands after receiving a red light camera ticket and a parking ticket in the mail in the last two months.
The problem is she wasn’t behind the wheel for either infraction after the family’s minivan was stolen on Oct. 5 and other than these tickets they haven’t seen it since.
“If you’re bold enough to steal keys out of someone’s pocket and steal someone’s van, you don’t care about parking tickets I guess.”
English said the day their vehicle was stolen, the couple took advantage of the city’s first snowfall by taking their three children to Lawson Civic Centre which they thought would be quiet and serene.
“We went into the family change room and put our big winter coats, mitts and everything into the locker then took our bags into the “behind the door” change room, changed and put our bags into the lockers and locked our lockers up.”
English says the family did the exact same thing in reverse on the way out and at some point someone must have snagged their keys from a jacket placed inside the locker.
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“We went to go home and he said ‘my keys are missing’ and sure enough they’d been taken so had the van.”
The facility has a surveillance system but the couple was told it was not operating that night.
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They have since cancelled their plates and replaced their blue Honda Odyssey along with its contents but it’s come at a cost – thousands of dollars and now endless hours dealing with the traffic violations being racked up on city streets.
“It’s taken a number of calls – I’ve talked to the prosecutor, I’ve talked to the city a few times, I’ve had to go down to the police to give them the ticket so that they have the information to help them find the vehicle and it just seems really inefficient.”
English says especially if there was a way for City of Saskatoon parking officials to help the Saskatoon Police Service (SPS) recover stolen vehicles while issuing tickets.
“I’m sure they could come up with some way that when they enter a ticket it triggers something at SPS so someone could send a car over and have a look at that car parked at 6th Avenue North.”
According to police, English’s case is rare in which the victim of an auto theft continues to be re-victimized every time they’re issued a ticket.
As for sharing information with another organization outside of the police agency then having to recall it, Staff Sgt. AJ Chevli with the economic crime unit said there would be a unique set of challenges in doing so.
“It makes it difficult for us to provide them with an up-to-date list on an hourly basis as to what’s stolen and what’s recovered because that list can change dramatically within a 12 hour period,” Chevli said.
“You can have your car stolen at 10 o’clock in the morning and at 10:10 that morning we could find it across the city.”
If there were no legal implications to sharing the information and the two organizations used the same program, police said it would be worth looking into.
“That interoperability would help tremendously to increase our efficiencies, increase public safety and community safety if some how the two systems could talk and marry each that way it would help.”
English acknowledges the hesitation but says the long-term efficiencies could go a long way in keep our streets safer.
“It means more work on somebody’s part and that costs money, I think it would be worth it and I think there are probably people who could make this happen,” she said.
“When parts of a city operate in tandem rather than as silos it’s going to benefit everybody including those systems it will make it easier for everybody.”
So just how big a problem is auto theft in Saskatoon? English is just one of 1,007 families who have had their vehicle nabbed this year alone.
In Saskatchewan, more than 3,100 hundred vehicles have been stolen in 2016 and in 60 per cent of all cases the keys were inside or the motor vehicle was unlocked.
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