That’s even what the pros do. They don’t make noise or draw attention to themselves. They are only looking for a couple of items, guns and cash. That’s the MO of the urban yute. The guns and cash get kicked up to their handler. Usually a 20 year old or so that spots for them and keeps their ride mobile. They get a cut after the guns have been traded for dope. What cash they make from selling dope is pure profit.

Sometimes the yutes will do a larger score like an FFL burglary. Drive a stolen car through the front of the store. 10 handguns will net the $10k in dope. To which they make $18-20k from selling.

Felony Lane Gang has a completely different MO and skill set. They will break out a window to grab a purse, gun or other items. In broad daylight. But, generally the operate a mile or two off of an interstate, and their job is then to get to the next city and max out the credit cards or checks before it gets reported.

quote:

Originally posted by wrightd:

quote:

Originally posted by jljones:
I read that. I even doubt that to be true. The media rarely gets it right.

But, even if so, if you don’t leave valuables in your vehicle, again, this doesn’t happen.

I saw a kid in bright daylight checking the doors of each car in a back parking lot, right down the line. Based on what you said I suppose he wasn't a pro, but I couldn't call the police since it was before cell phones, but he was methodical, and would be gone before I could ever find a phone.

Smart thieves look for low hanging fruit. Not making noise or causing a scene makes them much less likely to get caught. 99% of the thefts from vehicles and stolen cars that I've worked have been unlocked cars, and the stolen ones had keys left in them. I don't know what intelligent person would do either of those things, but there's plenty of people out there who do. Plenty of idiots who leave guns, large sums of money, or other valuables in their unlocked cars, too. Locking your doors and taking your keys won't make you 100% safe from theft, but it'll drastically reduce the likelihood.

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Originally posted by 92fstech:
Plenty of idiots who leave guns, large sums of money, or other valuables.

My last five years in investigations, I probably worked 700-800 of these, state and federal.

A few notable-

5 thefts of amounts above $20k. One was $186k.

About 150 guns. One guy had 1 handguns stolen on 3 separate occasions from the same unlocked truck within 5 years. 4 others that I remember had guns stolen a couple of years apart. One guy had the same handgun stolen twice. We recovered it, made an arrest, and a couple years later it was stolen again.

All the adults arrested in these were handlers. Most were only charged with Contributing to the delinquency of a minor. All of the actual thieves were 13-16 years old. Now, I’m seeing thieves that are becoming handlers because they’ve aged out. ZERO charged federally.

Let's see if I can summarize what will happen in the next 24-36 hrs.

Statement from Mother - He didn't deserve to get killed over this, it isn't right, I want justice for my baby

Statement from siblings - He was a good kid, funny, loving, wouldn't have hurt nobody no how. This shouldn't have happened to such a good kid. Someone needs to pay!

Statement from Uncle or family friend - He was a good kid, was turning his life around. He was outright murdered!

The article in the first post makes it seem like the thief is alive and in a hospital with non-life threatening injuries.

^^^^ Yeah, from the article:

When he went outside the young man was still breaking into cars. He says the thief started threatening to shoot him and a neighbor. The homeowner ended up shooting the thief three times.

Police say someone called EMS at 19th and Cleveland for a shooting victim matching his description suffering from non-life threatening injuries.

Maybe he will have a second chance to actually turn his life around...

quote:

Originally posted by jljones:
They are only looking for a couple of items, guns and cash. That’s the MO of the urban yute. The guns and cash get kicked up to their handler. Usually a 20 year old or so that spots for them and keeps their ride mobile. They get a cut after the guns have been traded for dope. What cash they make from selling dope is pure profit.

Sometimes the yutes will do a larger score like an FFL burglary. Drive a stolen car through the front of the store. 10 handguns will net the $10k in dope. To which they make $18-20k from selling.

And this isn't just limited to Jones' area, or even deeply urban areas.

That's the exact MO around here as well, in the smaller cities/suburbs:

Small groups of juveniles (1-4) systematically pulling car handles in neighborhoods/parking lots (car hopping) to find unlocked cars from which to steal money and guns, while hoping to find a car with the keys in it so they can travel to hit a wider area. Stuff getting turned in to their older handler in exhange for drugs and a cut of the profits. Occasionally escalating to a smash and grab at a gun store for a bigger score every couple years. The whole shebang.

It's a nationwide trend.

Who could have ever imagined that taking a soft on crime approach would have resulted in more crime? Certainly not George Soros. That couldn’t possibly be why he bought and paid for all those DAs.

Probably just me, but my take-away from this is "Shoot the perp if you want anything done about it."

I'm good with that...

quote:

Originally posted by Rightwire:
Let's see if I can summarize what will happen in the next 24-36 hrs.

You forgot "He was no angel, but had a good heart" and "He was looking into starting community college in the Fall, so he could eventually support his 4.2 kids."

IMO the homeowner should have used a 12 gauge. Three rounds of 00 and that thief would have been DiRT.

quote:

He took his whole bag with his id, his social security card, all his credit cards in there, and iPad.

While I'm glad the little bastard got caught and felt pain I can't feel sorry for the guy that the quote refers to. He should have never left items like that in his car.

We get a rash of this in our neighborhood once a year or so (long enough that the neighbors forget). Yutes come in at night, go thru the neighborhood, take what they can, leave and move on to the next neighborhood. Next day neighbors bitch. I am convinced most of them left their car doors unlocked and valuables in their cars. My neighbor across the street got his car stolen. Well, guess what? He left it unlocked and the keys in the car. Duh!

That's 99% of stolen cars. Unlocked with the keys left in them. Or even left running unattended.

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Originally posted by RogueJSK:
That's 99% of stolen cars. Unlocked with the keys left in them. Or even left running unattended.

Fun story about that. We had two "auto thefts" in town one night, all because people are stupid.

First one was related to a wedding. There's a venue in town at the bottom of a hill with a really tiny parking lot. An older lady had parked her Jeep on one of the side streets at the top of the hill and walked down to the venue. When it came time for her to leave, she asked her nephew to go get her Jeep and drive it down to pick her up so she wouldn't have to walk up the hill. Told him the keys were in it. So the kid goes up the hill and finds the unlocked Jeep with the keys in it, and drives it down the hill to pick up his aunt. She starts to get in and then tells him, "this isn't my Jeep, go put it back where you got it!"

So the kid, who also isn't local, drives it back up the hill and parks it, but accidentally ends up one block over from where he found it. He finds the correct Jeep and drives it down to pick up his aunt. Meanwhile the Jeep's actual owner comes out to unload the groceries from his Jeep and it's gone. He calls the cops, who after a little searching end up finding it one street over. Aunt ended up feeling bad and called in to report what happened, otherwise we likely would have never figured it out.

While this was all going on, dispatch gets another call about a different stolen vehicle in town from a restaurant parking lot a few blocks away. Keep in mind, small town, not a lot of theft, and they haven't found the first vehicle or heard from the aunt yet, so our guys think we're getting hit by some coordinated auto theft ring. An officer goes down to talk to the second victim, and learns that his newer push-button-start Ford Explorer was left in the parking lot unlocked with the key fob in the center console. When he came out to leave, it was gone.

While that officer was getting information from victim #2, they found the first car, spoke to the aunt, and figured out the story on "theft" #1. As time went by, the restaurant parking lot started to empty out and lo and behold there's a different but similar Ford Explorer sitting there with nobody left in the restaurant to claim it. They ran the plates which came back to a guy in Valparaiso, which is about an hour and a half away. Now that they knew what happened with "stolen vehicle #1", it got some wheels turning in some heads and one of the officers made contact with the registered owner (iirc it took some doing because the BMV doesn't always have phone numbers, or they're not up to date, so I think they had to send Valpo PD out to the guy's house).

Turns out the guy's wife was out for a girls night with friends, and he'd had her take his Explorer that she doesn't usually drive because it was AWD and the weather was pretty crappy. She came out of the restaurant, got into what she thought was the right vehicle, and it started when she pushed the button because the owner had left the fob in it. So she drove it all the way home to Valpo and then had to turn around and bring it back.

Both situations were comically stupid, thankfully had better endings than your typical auto theft, and both were a huge waste of time and totally preventable if people would have just taken their keys.