kenny
12-13-2005, 12:44 AM
My civic was stolen from the back of my mechanics shop a while ago. I had removed my recaros seats and wheels from the car before I parked it there. It was parked there waiting for a new shell for the next project. Unfortunately, it was stolen before the next project could continue.
Fast forward 4-5 weeks (approx).
So I was sitting at home pretty bored on Saturday night waiting for the Ottawa Senators vs Calgary Flames game to start when I received a private message from one of our forum regulars, illeagle, informing me that my stolen civic was spotted parked in a lot up in the industrial area. It was about 6:30 or so and a couple hours before the game so I decided to drive out to the lot to check it out. I called and got a couple backups for the quick roadtrip.
We drove straight to the lot (excellent directions and description btw!) and sure enough my old civic was parked right where it was. The sticker that was on the rear glass was removed (probably to make it harder to identify and spot) and there was a new seat installed! So my car has been fixed up a bit, wtf is going on... is someone driving this thing around? I stayed out of the car just in case... didn't want to contaminate a crime scene right? haha.
We called the cops at about 7:30 and were told a car was being sent out. We sat there for a bit and wondered why in the world the car was parked there along with what looked like two other stolen cars. Game time rolled around so we turned on FAN960 to listen to the game. We were getting pretty damn bored and I decided that by the second intermission, if no cop has shown up yet we were going to call again. Sure enough, while still down 1-0 at the second intermission I decided to call again to ask whats up. I told the operator that I was waiting for an officer and that its been a few hours already.
She told me that all officers are tied up so anything non emergency would not be attended to at this time. I asked if theres any way she could check if an officer has been notified at least that they are needed and she replied with "80th ave?". Location via cell phone signals? Impressive! I hung up and announced to my fellow road trippers that it was going to be a long ass night as no one is being sent right away.
Our road trip captain decided that it was time to get some grub at the local Tim Hortons donut shop. We would kill two birds with one stone: 1. We get our smoothies and chocolate danishes and 2. We'll find out if all officers are REALLY tied up. Haha. We got our food and drinks and unfortunately there were no officers at the Tim Hortons. We returned back to the car, sans cop, and were pretty bored so we decided to drive around the area to see if we can figure out where the chop shop was (if there was one). Three CSIs in training! We drove around the building directly opposite of the lot and found another honda civic completely stripped parked around back. As we continued driving by we saw a rack with a bunch of brakes and suspension parts all rusted out. On the ground we saw some brakes that had no rust yet sitting in the snow so they must've been removed recently off a car.
We drove around to the front to see what was the name of the shop and it was a ventilation shop which should have nothing to do with cars? We were set on the fact this place was a chop shop and that explained why there were three other cars that looked stolen parked up front. At this point I was glad I got this tip as it looked like my car could've been next to be parted out. This got me wondering, why the heck is the car still in one piece? Why havent the parts been swapped to another car? Weird. I'm not complaining just wondering why someone would steal a car but not take the stuff and run?
A few hours had passed, and there was still no cop on the scene. We decided that if the cops were so busy, we'd go and look for one to see if theres any cruising the area. How hard could it be to find a cop on Saturday night by the industrial area (area is known for street racing)? We drove around EVERYWHERE nearby and not a single cop. We took a quick trip down 52nd and arrived in Forest Lawn. Sorry, they may be cleaning the place up but theres GOTTA be some cops driving around here right? Nope! We drove up and down every side street and 17th itself, and no cops. Frustrated, we cruised the hooker stroll again in hopes of finding a cop. Our sources tell us the cops are always parked on the side by the stroll so this would our best bet. No cops. On one of the side streets we came up on one of the ghetto-est (is that a word?) trailer parks that any of us have ever seen. We decided to take a quick detour from our task at hand to check it out. I mean, we've been doing shit all since 6:30 so why not? Surprisingly, we saw some pretty expensive late model SUVs and minivans parked outside some of the trailers! Maybe this is the sacrifice people make to drive fancy cars.
At this point we gave up and said that the cops would probably arrive in the wee hours of the morning, and we weren't prepared to wait out here for them. We left and went to get some dinner at Boston Pizza and not one minute after we ordered, we get a phone call from a police officer informing us that they were finished with what they were doing and our call was their next. We asked to have our food packed for takeout instead of dine in and booked it back to the scene as soon as the food was ready.
When we returned, the cops were there waiting in their car. They drove around and checked out all the car parts in the back, and ran the three vehicles. After doing some paperwork and changing the status of the vehicle on their systems (it was reported stolen) they released the car back to me and called in a tow truck for me. They then left and went off to the next call. They said they didn't have time to wait for the tow truck as they have too many calls to deal with. Wow, wait almost four hours for cops and they're only here for 10 minutes!
Tow trucks usually take about 6 - 8 hours to arrive when you call them but thankfully, when a police officer radios for a tow truck, they only take about 15 minutes! The car was towed back to my house and the replacement civic was already in town ready to have all the parts swapped in. We never did find out what was up with the other two stolen vehicles that were parked in that lot. I didn't care, I got my car back. For the person that stole it and left it there, we left him some half eaten wings from Boston Pizza! Enjoy!
http://www.virgeweb.com/rage2/kennyEG/day1/media/IMG_0059.JPG
Update:
Today, all the parts from the recovered civic have been swapped over to the new civic I had purchased to replace this one. I never imagined that I would actually get all my parts back since it had been just over a month. Thanks to the large membership of beyond.ca with over 25,000 sets of eyes on the lookout for this stolen car, I got my car back and all the parts I spent thousands of dollars on. The police do not have the manpower to recover stolen vehicles (especially Honda Civics) but a forum full of car enthusiasts can certainly lend a helping hand, or 25,000.
Fast forward 4-5 weeks (approx).
So I was sitting at home pretty bored on Saturday night waiting for the Ottawa Senators vs Calgary Flames game to start when I received a private message from one of our forum regulars, illeagle, informing me that my stolen civic was spotted parked in a lot up in the industrial area. It was about 6:30 or so and a couple hours before the game so I decided to drive out to the lot to check it out. I called and got a couple backups for the quick roadtrip.
We drove straight to the lot (excellent directions and description btw!) and sure enough my old civic was parked right where it was. The sticker that was on the rear glass was removed (probably to make it harder to identify and spot) and there was a new seat installed! So my car has been fixed up a bit, wtf is going on... is someone driving this thing around? I stayed out of the car just in case... didn't want to contaminate a crime scene right? haha.
We called the cops at about 7:30 and were told a car was being sent out. We sat there for a bit and wondered why in the world the car was parked there along with what looked like two other stolen cars. Game time rolled around so we turned on FAN960 to listen to the game. We were getting pretty damn bored and I decided that by the second intermission, if no cop has shown up yet we were going to call again. Sure enough, while still down 1-0 at the second intermission I decided to call again to ask whats up. I told the operator that I was waiting for an officer and that its been a few hours already.
She told me that all officers are tied up so anything non emergency would not be attended to at this time. I asked if theres any way she could check if an officer has been notified at least that they are needed and she replied with "80th ave?". Location via cell phone signals? Impressive! I hung up and announced to my fellow road trippers that it was going to be a long ass night as no one is being sent right away.
Our road trip captain decided that it was time to get some grub at the local Tim Hortons donut shop. We would kill two birds with one stone: 1. We get our smoothies and chocolate danishes and 2. We'll find out if all officers are REALLY tied up. Haha. We got our food and drinks and unfortunately there were no officers at the Tim Hortons. We returned back to the car, sans cop, and were pretty bored so we decided to drive around the area to see if we can figure out where the chop shop was (if there was one). Three CSIs in training! We drove around the building directly opposite of the lot and found another honda civic completely stripped parked around back. As we continued driving by we saw a rack with a bunch of brakes and suspension parts all rusted out. On the ground we saw some brakes that had no rust yet sitting in the snow so they must've been removed recently off a car.
We drove around to the front to see what was the name of the shop and it was a ventilation shop which should have nothing to do with cars? We were set on the fact this place was a chop shop and that explained why there were three other cars that looked stolen parked up front. At this point I was glad I got this tip as it looked like my car could've been next to be parted out. This got me wondering, why the heck is the car still in one piece? Why havent the parts been swapped to another car? Weird. I'm not complaining just wondering why someone would steal a car but not take the stuff and run?
A few hours had passed, and there was still no cop on the scene. We decided that if the cops were so busy, we'd go and look for one to see if theres any cruising the area. How hard could it be to find a cop on Saturday night by the industrial area (area is known for street racing)? We drove around EVERYWHERE nearby and not a single cop. We took a quick trip down 52nd and arrived in Forest Lawn. Sorry, they may be cleaning the place up but theres GOTTA be some cops driving around here right? Nope! We drove up and down every side street and 17th itself, and no cops. Frustrated, we cruised the hooker stroll again in hopes of finding a cop. Our sources tell us the cops are always parked on the side by the stroll so this would our best bet. No cops. On one of the side streets we came up on one of the ghetto-est (is that a word?) trailer parks that any of us have ever seen. We decided to take a quick detour from our task at hand to check it out. I mean, we've been doing shit all since 6:30 so why not? Surprisingly, we saw some pretty expensive late model SUVs and minivans parked outside some of the trailers! Maybe this is the sacrifice people make to drive fancy cars.
At this point we gave up and said that the cops would probably arrive in the wee hours of the morning, and we weren't prepared to wait out here for them. We left and went to get some dinner at Boston Pizza and not one minute after we ordered, we get a phone call from a police officer informing us that they were finished with what they were doing and our call was their next. We asked to have our food packed for takeout instead of dine in and booked it back to the scene as soon as the food was ready.
When we returned, the cops were there waiting in their car. They drove around and checked out all the car parts in the back, and ran the three vehicles. After doing some paperwork and changing the status of the vehicle on their systems (it was reported stolen) they released the car back to me and called in a tow truck for me. They then left and went off to the next call. They said they didn't have time to wait for the tow truck as they have too many calls to deal with. Wow, wait almost four hours for cops and they're only here for 10 minutes!
Tow trucks usually take about 6 - 8 hours to arrive when you call them but thankfully, when a police officer radios for a tow truck, they only take about 15 minutes! The car was towed back to my house and the replacement civic was already in town ready to have all the parts swapped in. We never did find out what was up with the other two stolen vehicles that were parked in that lot. I didn't care, I got my car back. For the person that stole it and left it there, we left him some half eaten wings from Boston Pizza! Enjoy!
http://www.virgeweb.com/rage2/kennyEG/day1/media/IMG_0059.JPG
Update:
Today, all the parts from the recovered civic have been swapped over to the new civic I had purchased to replace this one. I never imagined that I would actually get all my parts back since it had been just over a month. Thanks to the large membership of beyond.ca with over 25,000 sets of eyes on the lookout for this stolen car, I got my car back and all the parts I spent thousands of dollars on. The police do not have the manpower to recover stolen vehicles (especially Honda Civics) but a forum full of car enthusiasts can certainly lend a helping hand, or 25,000.