Pittsburgh Police Auto Squad tries to crackdown on rising car thefts
PITTSBURGH (KDKA) — Some criminals just love to steal cars.
The problem's existed since cars first hit the road, but KDKA Investigates found it's often a group effort in Pittsburgh to get the thieves under arrest.
KDKA-TV Investigator Meghan Schiller found there's a Pittsburgh Police Auto Squad, which relies heavily on Pittsburgh officers outside the squad to make the majority of arrests.
"It was rage at first, but then it went to basically now I have to deal with this," said Larry Ciarelli.
Ciarelli can now look at his car and really appreciate it because he knows how it feels when it's gone.
"A sinking feeling and then the fact that I had to go and actually get everything all over again, all of my IDs and everything, it was a stressful feeling," he said.
Note: This map is built using data sourced from the Pittsburgh Bureau of Police via a Right-to-Know Law request by KDKA-TV. It shows the locations of all reports to the PBP for stolen motor vehicles ("Theft by Unlawful Taking or Disposition - Movable item") from Jan. 1st, 2017 to Aug. 30th, 2023. KDKA-TV fuzzed to the block number or cross street of the reported car theft, which means the addresses are approximate, not exact, to avoid personally identifying information. The points are color-coded by year.
He's one of nearly 400 Pittsburghers this year who've walked out to their cars and found nothing. The thieves got there first.
"They were able to go into all of the lockers at the gym and collect credit cards and keys," Ciarelli said.
Back in June, he walked out of his gym in Penn Hills to find an empty parking spot. He just got his car back and told KDKA-TV that Penn Hills police used stoplight cameras to find the teenagers who took it for a joyride.
"It was completely trashed inside," Ciarelli said. "The smell was really bad. We had to get a lot of cleaning, detail. There were paintballs all over the ground."
Ciarelli says the thieves trashed and stashed. He found stolen license plates under his seat. But because of their age, the alleged thieves went back home to their parents. It's a similar story inside city limits.
"We have one female in particular; she stole 13 vehicles from the valet," said Sgt. Tom Huerbin of the Auto Squad. "She was 17 years old, and we had to keep releasing her to her parents who were asking us to please do something with her."
Huerbin leads the Pittsburgh Bureau of Police Auto Squad, a team dedicated to finding stolen cars. Last year, the squad made 37 arrests and 20 of them were teenagers. So far this year, the squad has already arrested 13 teenagers, nearly half of the squad's total arrests for the year.
KDKA-TV's Meghan Schiller asked, "Do you think it's gotten worse?"
"In certain aspects, it certainly has, especially with the juvenile offenders, especially with recidivism," he said. "We catch them, release them, they come back and do another car."
"Last year, 812 cars that were stolen, and over 585 were recovered," he added.
Out of the 365 new cases this year, data shows they've found 351.
KDKA-TV also learned the squad relies heavily on Pittsburgh police officers and officers in surrounding municipalities when it comes to making arrests for these cases that originate in Pittsburgh.
If you fold in that data, total arrests jump from the squad's 28 to 147 out of those 365 reports of stolen cars. That's 40 percent of the cases ending with arrests. But not every arrest is for car theft. Most are for a lower-level offense: receiving stolen property — the stolen car.
It's up to the district attorney after that.
"We clean them. It's up to them to fry them," said Sgt. Huerbin.
And what's more, these thefts are not just happening to regular people. Police say thieves are hitting dealerships too.
"A couple of cases started here in Pittsburgh, and we found the cars were being shipped to Africa, taken to New Jersey, put in containers and shipped out of the country," Huerbin said.
KDKA-TV's Meghan Schiller asked, "Is that happening here in Pittsburgh at Pittsburgh dealerships?"
"From Pittsburgh dealerships," said Sgt. Huerbin. "We've had two dealerships where that's occurred where they've fraudulently used fake licenses and money orders to put the down payment on the vehicle and the car disappears."
It's a lot of work for a small squad. Huerbin's just one of four detectives currently dedicated to working this beat full-time.
"Some people say well it's just a property crime. Well, it's a pretty expensive property," said Huerbin.
