Auto thefts spike, police blame joy-riding teens

Edmonton Police blamea spike in car thefts on joyriding teens.

They find cars that are open or cars that are running, said Supt. Terry Rocchio. They do it because it's a thrill.

Northeast Edmonton has been hardest hit, with 186 thefts so far this year, compared to 113 for the same period last year. That's a jump of 65 per cent.

Investigating vehicle thefts costs the police time and the victims money, Rocchio said.

Probably two to four hours at least, every time we arrest them, he said. Then if we find the vehicle, we have to have one of our members at the vehicle and then we have to call a tow truck down, and we have to tow the vehicle to one of our lots.

Then the owner has to pay the tow truck charges and the storage charges.

Rocchio said the solution is common sense.

If we lock our vehicles, if we don't keep them running, if we don't leave our spare keys in the vehicle, we're gonna reduce car thefts probably by about 40 per cent, I would suggest.