West Seattle Crime Watch: Cars targeted, again

As was reiterated again last night by Lt. Steve Paulsen in the crime update at the JuNO meeting (WSB report here), car-related crime is one of the worst West Seattle problems at the moment, even with crime down overall. That photo came from Scott, who says:

This morning I woke up to discover that thieves had stolen the front of my Honda Civic. I live on 37th between Dakota and Andover [map] and the car was parked in the alley behind our house. They took the hood, lights, front bumper and the front side panels. They also broke a small triangular window towards the back of the car for some reason. It didn’t seem like got inside the car, there was nothing in there to take. Whoever did this knew what they were doing – other than the window there wasn’t any other damage.

We also have a short note from yesterday regarding a window-smash situation – this report was from Michale, who saw it while driving by:

I just wanted to report a car break=in (Tuesday) morning on the corner of 40th Ave SW and Holly [map]. I live just a block away and on my way to work, I noticed a car with a smashed-out window and glass all over the street. From what I could tell, the thieves only hit the one vehicle. This is the first time I have seen a smash and grab in the neighborhood. I would like to just put the word out there for people in the area to be on the lookout.

MAS March 11, 2009 (2:29 pm)

Let this be a lesson to you all not to leave your fenders and hood attached, as that’s just _begging_ a thief to take them. In fact, even leaving the frame attachment points on the car will often cause them to break in, just to see…

Kidding aside, that is horrible. What makes a theif comfortable enough to hang around long enough to remove the quarter panels? Even cutting them off with air-tools would take a while.

bridge to somewhere March 11, 2009 (2:35 pm)

wtf?! i am completely stunned.

Traci March 11, 2009 (2:51 pm)

Stunned is the right word. I saw the picture and my jaw just dropped, it totally sucks about your car :(

M. March 11, 2009 (2:53 pm)

WOW. Crazy

MrJT March 11, 2009 (2:56 pm)

I’d almost prefer the just stole the whole car. What a hassle.

cjboffoli March 11, 2009 (3:03 pm)

MAS: I expect the hood and front fenders of that car are just bolted on. There wouldn’t be any power tools necessary. A couple guys with ratchets could do that faster (and quieter) than you think.

Eric March 11, 2009 (3:10 pm)

How do you stop this? I’ve stayed up late (2am) on various nights and don’t see anything suspicious. Is there a time of night this happens that a community watch could be formed to catch / prevent this from happening?

Mike March 11, 2009 (3:28 pm)

How do you stop this? Don’t park outside. Civic’s are the #1 most common vehicle to be stripped for parts. Just look for a kid driving a multi color Civic with a white frontend on it now.

mike March 11, 2009 (3:31 pm)

Check ebay. My guess is someone got in an accident recently and didn’t want to pay for the panels.

this makes me rethink buying panels off ebay….

Ikonoclast March 11, 2009 (3:58 pm)

I don’t get it. Wouldn’t this creat a huge amount of noise?

StephenHJ March 11, 2009 (4:10 pm)

With regard to the broken rear glass, that was probably an alarm test. Walk by, pop the glass, watch the car. If no reaction in 30 seconds, get busy.

I’d guess that this was a case where somebody hit something, and was looking to fix it. Possibly even a hit & run repair.

Too bad.

nd March 11, 2009 (5:16 pm)

Holy crap! I can see the whole cycle continuing. All of us unlucky Civic owners are going to have to buy replacement parts, and in order to get the best deal, we’ll be buying from eBay and using each other’s parts like some sad patchwork musical chairs game.

AD March 11, 2009 (5:30 pm)

I just bought a Civic…I had an alarm system installed. Do they really help? Did the person with the stripped Civic have one?

miws March 11, 2009 (5:49 pm)

nd, around 20 years ago, Honda bucket seats were a hot theft item, I think they still are, but back then I think it was more specifically the Honda Prelude seats.

Anyway, one of Monthly Parking customers, at the parking garage I worked at, had the seats stolen from his Prelude (not at the parking garage). It sucks for that to happen to anybody, but this was a real nice guy, so I felt very bad for him, but he was actually taking it with a bit of humor.

When he next brought that car in, after having the seats replaced, I teased him saying something like “…and where did you get your seats?

Mike

What The March 11, 2009 (8:15 pm)

It’s a Honda Civic…one of the most stolen cars probably in US History! A friend of mine had his Civic SI stolen just so they could get the seats and steering wheel? The car was found the next day by the Police 3 blocks away and out of gas cus the thieves left the car running.

Scott, your car body parts have already been painted in a “primer” color and unfortunately have been driving past you up and down California Ave…Sorry!

dude March 11, 2009 (9:24 pm)

Most Honda’s are not just civics – my Honda CRX was stolen too and constantly broken into. Anyway, I had no idea times were THIS hard that they would peel a car’s parts off the front! Makes me think twice about where I park my car at night. Sorry about your car.

Voodoo March 12, 2009 (8:34 am)

nd – you may not be far off in your theory of a “musical chairs game”. I saw a story on some newsmagazine show a while back about a ring of thieves on the east coast. They stole airbags out of cars and sold them to the owner of a body shop (the ringleader), who sold them to his customers – who had had their airbags stolen!

Neighbor March 12, 2009 (11:37 am)

Welcome to the third world…

Lola March 12, 2009 (2:58 pm)

Wow I have never seen anything like this before. Nothing is sacred anymore. It looks like it was in some horrible accident. Do we have to stand guard by our cars now just so they wont steal the stuff off of them?

My son’s Honda S-2000 had the seat’s ripped from them right in our drive-way while we slept. The soft-top was sliced twice while he owned it. It was not worth it anymore so he got rid of it.

Sorry, comment time is over.