SPPD: Only 13 claims for more than 90 items linked to car burglaries
By Peggy Kelly
Santa Paula Police Department
Published: April 25, 2008
By Peggy Kelly
Santa Paula Times
Although the Santa Paula Police Department has more than 90 items recovered in recent months from suspected car burglars, a SPPD detective said only a baker’s dozen have been claimed. Detective Dan Kiernan has just sent off a list of the property to “other agencies to see if they match up to their thefts,” he noted Tuesday.
Out of the 91 items recovered “only 13 items” have been claimed, and “what I still have is some of the higher dollar” property. Kiernan needs owners for four GPS devices - a Garmon, MAXTEX and Mio - a “full portable Sirius satellite system for a car,” and three iPods. One of the iPods “was named Jason’s iPod”; the other is known as KC’s Nano, monikers that come up when the iPods are turned on.
“We also have a number of smaller sized digital cameras” manufactured by Kodak, Cannon and Sony, he added. “That’s the major items,” and it appears the majority of the victims who have claimed the more expensive property are from the Thousand Oaks and the Moorpark areas. Two laptop computers have also been returned to their owners, said Kiernan.
Kiernan said a local resident was happy to be reunited with a Dale Earnhart NASCAR duffle bag that he spotted in a photograph of recovered stolen property published in the Santa Paula Times. “The owner called in and was able to identify the contents and picked it up... he had not reported it stolen, had assumed it’s just a duffle bag with personal items that would never be recovered,” an assumption reversed after the victim made out the required theft report.
The word of the recovered loot should be spread to the East County, and Kiernan said anyone with friends in the Moorpark or Thousand Oaks area should let them know about the items held by the SPPD. The goal is not only to reunite owners with their stolen property. “The District Attorney’s Office is pending” prosecution to see if others claim their property, which would add to the charges filed. The police can only “suspect that an item is stolen and then follow up on it” to try to link it to the rightful owner.
“For future reference,” property owners should write down or keep a folder in their homes of all their “high-end electronics,” as well as the serial and model numbers. A driver’s license number can also be a good way to mark property for identification. “Even take a picture of it,” suggested Kiernan.
Without identifying marks - or, as in the case of the NASCAR duffle bag, the intimate knowledge of any contents - that link the owner with the goods, property cannot be returned. “If a cell phone is stolen the owner can call their carrier to get the serial number or check the box the phone came in... the serial number will be on that.”
The SPPD recovered about nine cell phones and were able to return six. “Some took hours of time,” while others were much easier, noted Kiernan.
On the phones where the memory had not been wiped clean, “we went into the contacts list... one was great: Mom. So when I call Mom and Mom knows whose telephone number it is, that’s easy to track. As a result of that one, another item was able to be returned” in addition to the cell phone that held the key to the owner’s identity.
If you believe the SPPD might have your stolen property, call Detective Kiernan at 525-4474 Ext. 116.
