A Police Officer Taught me How to Steal a Car
The craziest fuckin’ thing happened to me on Monday and it had nothing to do with the eclipse. A police officer showed me how to steal a car.
I’m dead serious. Right around 10:30 a.m. in the morning as folks were readying themselves for the eclipse, I was sitting inside my house and I heard a car accident outside. You know, the classic tire screeching followed by boom-crash-broken glass…the works. Multiple cars clearly collided and I brushed it off like it was just another day in Oakland and that it was probably something further off in the distance.
Welp, nope… not at all. It was a fender bender just outside of my house where a driver had whipped around the corner too fast, lost control and drove into two parked cars. The driver, allegedly a 13-year-old, was well below the driving age limit, had fled the scene before I had been able to come outside to peep the damage. He left the car idling in the middle of the street so the cops came pretty quickly to assess the situation.
When the cops came, they turned off the car and interviewed the witnesses to the accident. Surprisingly, but maybe not all that surprisingly if you live in Oakland, there were several of my neighbors who had seen the whole thing.
Turns out, according to one officer, the car had been stolen earlier in the morning (around 4 a.m) and the owner had only had his car for less than a month before it was stolen. As I like to do, I started asking a lot of questions around this type of crime and if it’s linked to teens often. Car break-ins and thefts feel like they’ve been happening more and more and I wanted to know why from the cop’s perspective. What he said was actually pretty surprising to me.
I’m paraphrasing here and this isn’t a direct quote but he basically told me that there have been social media posts lately that have recently gone viral about how easy it is to steal certain types of cars and that teenagers have started to steal them more often. Kids who may not have ever done something like this before see how easy it is and then steal cars for fun. They will steal the car smoke weed (or whatever else they like to do) and then, if they get caught, they get a slap on the wrist and hardly get in trouble.
While the officer was telling me how easy it is for teens to steal cars, he said,”Here, I’ll show you”. Within 3 steps, and with very very easy to find tools most all of us have at home, he showed me how to set up the car and easily restarted the stolen car that had been previously idling in the street. No alarm went off. I was, and still am, in shock. He explained that only some cars are built this way but that folks have figured out which are easier to grab than others (hasn’t that always been the truth?). Of course, most especially after this, I’ve been warning all of my friends to look up their car and see if it’s on any list indicating that it’s easy to steal.
After the demonstration, I questioned him some more with, “So, nothing happens to them at all?”… and the officer says to me “Oakland is lawless”. I pushed him a little bit on that comment…” But, aren’t you the law?” He explained that after he recovers the car, finds the person who committed the crime, and does his paperwork, it’s up to the lawyers to take that next step. That, if you’re underage, hardly anything happens right now and there are really bare minimum consequences if you’re under 18. He blamed the District Attorney and the system as a whole. He even said that there is one teen who has been arrested multiple times for stealing over 200 cars and nothing has happened to him. According to him, they’ll get a notice to appear in court and after that court date they may stay a little while in juvenile hall but otherwise they get sent home.
Although I’m absolutely sure all car thefts are not linked to teens and I’m sure the system is more complicated than just appearing in court and going home, this is the second time a cop has told me that stolen cars are linked to groups of teens in Oakland. Last month, I saw a cop in a different neighborhood waiting for a tow truck and I asked him what was going on. He had said that they were removing a stolen car which had been linked to petty crimes in Alameda by a group of teenage kids. That officer echoed what the other had told me…that nothing happens to these kids and once they realize not much happens to them they are back on the street doing the same thing until they turn 18 or the crimes escalate.
I’m not an expert and I’m not here to say what the solution to that whole fucking mess is, but it seems like these folks are pointing to a lack of consequences as major part of the problem. And it really IS a whole fucking mess with over 50% increase in car thefts in 2023, it’s a problem that is escalating. Back in October, it was reported that 9 kids stole an SUV and went on a chase with the police, eventually ramming into CHP officers before being arrested. According to CBS reporting, “the chase reached a cul-de-sac on Catron Drive, south of Bergedo Drive, where the CHP said the Hyundai rammed three patrol vehicles and a parked vehicle, subsequently crashing into another vehicle at Bergedo and Robledo Drive, the CHP said.”
One thing is for sure, car thefts in general have been going up and up and up in Oakland and the rest of The Bay. It was reported just this week on the 10th that 181 people were arrested in Oakland after a state law enforcement operation recovered over 400 stolen cars. There is a much larger issue that law enforcement is trying to clean up.
When it comes to protecting your car, one friend said a good solution for older cars is to have a kill-switch installed. Others have said to make sure you have a GPS device in your car so that if it’s stolen you’re able to find it quickly. One friend told me that she found her stolen car once after it got a parking ticket but that doesn’t seem to help prevent it from being stolen…only maybe helps after the fact? Honest question: What is the solution here?
Also: Don’t steal cars. Myself, this entire publication – none of us believe it’s OK or that you should do it. Don’t do it. Just because an officer showed me how doesn’t mean anyone should do it. It’s illegal, it’s not cool, let’s not make this the next trendy thing. We’re posting this for awareness purposes only.
Howdy! My name is Katy Atchison and I'm an Associate Editor for Broke-Ass Stuart.
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