GTA: Lake Stevens

Sixteen cars boosted in LS since Aug 15. We'll tell you when, where and how. Also: How the J425 Crime Map for October reflects a safe community. A J425 Subscriber Exclusive.

Do not leave your vehicle unattended for longer than necessary. If you have a garage, clear your shit out of it and park in it. That’s what it’s for.

- J425 Analysis

You know it’s bad when the car thieves are waiving goodbye to the cops as they leisurely pull away from the curb, leaving a pile of shatter-proof glass remnants on the sidewalk.

You know it’s bad when the car thieves don’t even bother ditching hot cars, choosing to use them instead as around-town commuters with next to zero fear of consequences.

A post from a statewide Facebook Group dedicated to locating and reappropriating stolen cars features an ad from a Lake Stevens resident who reported their car stolen August 25. Four days later, via the Facebook Group, they located and regained their vehicle.

If these anecdotes are shocking to you, they shouldn’t be at this point. We’re well into a pandemic of car thievery.

The car theft epidemic began in earnest after Washington lawmakers basically legislated the Grand Theft Auto video game series into life, passing several bills that prevented police from pursuing car thieves and most other criminals.

As Des Moines Police Chief Ken Thomas told Q13’s “The Spotlight”, criminals are more and more likely to “smile and waive” as the flee the scene, well aware of the fact that they can avoid arrest by simply driving away from would-be arresting officers in a stately manner (reckless driving can get you tailed still, apparently).

(The brilliant crime fighters in Olympia even dreamt up a parallel legislative update for those criminals who are nabbed on foot: suspects can now simply walk away from police while they are being detained, as the legislature removed law enforcement’s ability to physically detain anyone in the absence of probable cause. More on this later. )

Point being, car theft is epidemic, and local elected officials of every partisan stripe are frankly mad as hell about it and sick of telling their constituents that there is really nothing they can do about it.

Video: This is why we need to chase bad guys

If you haven’t watched the video we reported on featuring Lake Stevens Mayor Brett Gailey, Snohomish County Sheriff Adam Fortney and multiple other local leaders, you really should: it’s slick, informative and relevant.

With that introduction out of the way, welcome to the J425 Subscriber Exclusive Crime Report for October 2022. This month, as you might've guessed, we’re leading with car thefts. Let’s get right to it.

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GTA Lake Stevens: Frontier Village Edition

J425 maps the location of Lake Stevens car thefts since August 15.

Since August 15, the J425 has indexed¹ sixteen reported car thefts in the Greater Lake Stevens area.

Here’s what we can tell you about those incidents.