[Music] we're here today to talk about uh Auto thefts recently uh last week Chief Flynn released some of our crime numbers and one of the numbers he released was the fact that our Auto thefts are up in the city of Milwaukee um overall they're up 14% um one of the jobs of the South investigations division the vehicle and secondary exchange unit is to look at those Auto thefts um we did and we noticed that there was an increasing Trend in auto theft in which they we found them in scrapyards um we had a time period from January 1st through uh March 20th when we looked at our Auto thefts we had 913 Vehicles stolen during that time period of those uh 913 we found at least 12% of them in the scrap yards crushed that's a problem we looked at the processes in which this occurred and there's an obvious loophole in some of the laws right now an individual can sell their motor vehicle to a tow truck driver or drive it right into a scrapyard uh without having to produce a title or any actual proof of ownership um looking at that uh right now during these uh Economic Times the price of scrap metal has gone up 300% since 2009 so your car even though it may not be worth that much overall in a resale value it it's worth a lot in scrap so we're looking to try to get that change that loophole closed we'd like to uh maybe look at a state statute in which in order to sell your motor vehicle you should have the title and you should have some sort of um identification preferably a photo ID that shows that you own that vehicle you need those things right now when you're selling your vehicle to a dealership you should need those things um when you're selling them to a scrapyard or to a to a tow truck driver um a lot of individuals that are on Hard Times have vehicles that are older and have less value to them um or less value in the market how however they're valuable to them there's nothing worse than coming out of your house to go to work in the morning and find your vehicle gone and then to find out later on that it's actually been scrapped and crushed and there's no getting that vehicle back what we have been doing is is really scrutinizing uh the tow trucks that are that are towing cars we've been stopping a lot of them checking the paperwork trying to make sure that everybody is is following the current law um unfortunately though there's not a lot of checks and balances with that current law you can use um a junk vehicle Bill sale it's a form um a tow truck driver can present that form to an individual that's posing as the owner of a car they sign off on the form they show a photo ID that photo ID however doesn't show that they own that vehicle and the tow truck driver takes that vehicle takes it into one of the scrapyards drops it off gets their money and they're gone so we've done our best to try to stop some of the tow trucks however I think the law is what really needs to be changed in order to stop these well it's put some of the tow truck drivers on notice and some of the companies that are less scrupulous I notice that we are looking into this um we did an operation in which we um sat outside some of the scrapyards for two days during that two-day time period there were 47% less cars brought into the scrapyards than the week before when we weren't sitting there so it does make a difference um a little bit in our enforcement action in trying to deter people from uh picking up these cars and taking them but just the fact that anybody can just take a whole car hook it up by a tow truck and and take it away with almost no questions asked is is it big deal because in this city or anywhere else a lot of people own two big things you own your house if you're lucky and you own your car so that's your second biggest item you spend your money on and the fact that somebody can just hook it up and take it away is I think is a big deal um we try to work with the actual yards that are taking in the in the metal we try to um you know do some more checks and balances with them let them know that you know we're checking their books that's one of the things that we do and and try to work with them to be more diligent in making sure that they're taking in legitimate property one of the things that happens is somebody's car that's not running is sitting in the same place for a long time and that one leads you know some of these uh unscrupulous people to believe that that car has been abandoned when it's probably just in need of repair I would say make sure that your car is is in working order that it's parked legally um if it needs repair get it off the street just don't let your vehicle look like it's been abandoned because then somebody will come along and and tow it away [Music]