Happy ending: Attempted heist of neighbor's trailer

erkme73

BIT Beta Team
Joined
Nov 9, 2014
Messages
1,540
Reaction score
1,412
UPDATE: Happy ending... Post 26...

--------------------
Not super exciting or stellar video (obviously), but underscores the importance of live monitoring.

I live in a VERY rural area with about 1/2 mile between driveway aprons on a dead-end gravel road. My neighbor (about 2000' from where camera is located) has a 24' trailer parked on the road. It's been there for over a year. Aside from wrong turns, the only traffic we see is UPS/FedEx/USPS. It is so sparse, that I installed a driveway alert sensor across the road to alert me anytime someone comes down the street. It never goes off after dark unless it's wildlife... which is what I thought it was tonight.

Instead I see two vehicles - a Nissan Frontier towing a small single axle trailer, and a Jeep Liberty without a trailer - they drive to the end of the cul-de-sac and turn off their lights. That got my attention. I zoomed in a bit, and once realizing they were backing to the trailer, I immediately attempted to phone the neighbor. No reply.

So I jumped in the car and headed up my driveway and towards their location. At 9:33:30, they can hear me hauling ass to get to them. They abort and flee in my direction. I try to wave them down, but they blow right past me. I do a 180° and chase down the slower vehicle (Frontier with the trailer). Their tag was bent upward so that it was not visible. Eventually I get around him and stop broadside so he can't get by. I arm myself, and approach their vehicle. The immediately shout, "we're on the phone with the law!" I tell them, "Good!" and ask them what they were doing. They said they were chasing the other vehicle since it had just tried to steal from their home. Not having had the benefit of seeing the video below beforehand, I suspected they were together, but couldn't prove it.

I walked behind their car, bent the tag down, and took note of it. All the while they were telling me how they tried hard to catch the other guy. They had scabs all over their faces and looked emaciated. Tweakers all the way.

Needless to say, I let them go, and called the sheriff's office to report the tag number. After getting home and watching the various angles, I have no doubt they were together. My LPR didn't the tag of either vehicle, since both were bent straight up in an attempt to obscure their identity. That tells me the tags are likely legit.

 
Last edited:

erkme73

BIT Beta Team
Joined
Nov 9, 2014
Messages
1,540
Reaction score
1,412
You know, that's the first thing I thought of when I watched the replay... A car that can haul, what, maybe 5,000lb? I bet the dry weight of that trailer is pushing that. And it is NOT empty. I just went over to install a spare tongue lock on it for him... While there I noticed the doors were not locked. So I peeked inside... There are tool benches and coolers in there that I'm sure would have killed that Liberty before it got off our mountain.

Now that I'm certain the truck was complicit, I called the sheriff's office back to give them a link to the video - and to underscore that they were working together. I had the dispatcher run the tag to make sure it didn't come back stolen, or that I hadn't noted it incorrectly due to the stress of the moment. It came back to a grey Nissan Frontier. Bingo. Let's hope they make it go somewhere...
 

erkme73

BIT Beta Team
Joined
Nov 9, 2014
Messages
1,540
Reaction score
1,412
The actual county Sheriff showed up at my house to watch the video. Turns out this was part of a larger trailer theft ring, and they are pulling out all the stops to catch these guys. I'll post more when I finish homeschooling my kids.
 

NightLife

Getting comfortable
Joined
Sep 10, 2021
Messages
490
Reaction score
1,096
Location
Canada
And as they're pulling trailers .. they may as well load 'em up with goodies along the way. I just assumed the smaller trailer was brimming with stolen goods .. crimes of opportunity as they made their way from target to target. Scum like this boils my blood ..
 

erkme73

BIT Beta Team
Joined
Nov 9, 2014
Messages
1,540
Reaction score
1,412
Ok, so the sheriff of the county reviewed my videos with his chief investigator. They gleaned a few more details from the vehicles (i.e. damaged lights, types of rims, etc) and then spent the rest of the day trying to find the driver and the truck. Apparently the address on the registration was old, and they had to hunt him down. I'm not quite clear how that worked out, but this evening I received a text from the investigator, that they located the driver and the truck and he was naming names. So hopefully they'll be able to shut down the ring. It was an interesting experience, and both of my kids (7&8) got an interesting civics lesson.

FWIW, I also provided them with a copy of my dash camera video of the chase and stop. It's not very exciting so I'll not post it here.
 

TonyR

IPCT Contributor
Joined
Jul 15, 2014
Messages
16,438
Reaction score
38,154
Location
Alabama
Trailer tongue locks are cheap, I had one on my 28 ft. travel trailer. Also had the two propane tanks on it tied and padlocked with those thick, stranded cables and the padlocks had no exposed shank for bolt cutters or a reciprocating saw.

Neither might be completely theft-proof but it would take LOTS of time to defeat and probably be noisy, eliminating the convenient and quick "grab 'n go" part of a theft. :idk:
 

erkme73

BIT Beta Team
Joined
Nov 9, 2014
Messages
1,540
Reaction score
1,412
I also learned that they did cut his lock off the tongue. He had a standard padlock style lock through the latch tab. When the driver of the Liberty first gets out you can see him carrying bolt cutters. Even the cop said those are pointless. The one I installed that night is much more difficult to remove.
 

Attachments

erkme73

BIT Beta Team
Joined
Nov 9, 2014
Messages
1,540
Reaction score
1,412
I wouldn’t be so sure.

No doubt. The LPL videos prove pretty much any lock can be defeated. These tweakers brought bolt cutters. Those would have been ineffective on this style of lock - and I'd put money on it that their skill set doesn't include the knowledge on how to pick them.

Bet the bad guys don't know that or care.
Correct. I was just explaining why it was where it was. Not an excuse, just an explanation.
 
Top