Thieves nabbed three catalytic converters in Lakewood inside hours in early March, authorities mentioned.
The thefts occurred within the early morning hours of March 5 within the southern Los Angeles County metropolis, in response to a social media put up by the L.A. County Sheriff’s Division’s Lakewood station.
“This collection of incidents may be very disturbing and is one thing that town of Lakewood and our companions on the Lakewood sheriff’s station are specializing in intently,” mentioned Invoice Grady, a spokesperson for town. Town “is 100% dedicated to bringing the perpetrators of those crimes to justice.”
Investigators informed KABC-TV Channel 7 that the thefts all occurred close to the 4500 block of Lomina Avenue.
Each automobile comes geared up with a catalytic converter, which is made with treasured metals that cut back the car’s poisonous emissions, outputting much less dangerous exhaust equivalent to carbon dioxide. Through the COVID-19 pandemic, theft of the gadgets skyrocketed.
Based on a spokesperson for the Sheriff’s Division, the one info out there in regards to the Lakewood incident is a video posted to YouTube purporting to depict the theft of one of many gadgets by a number of individuals wielding baseball bats.
The video posted Monday by person Brian Maquena, who publishes a neighborhood e-newsletter, is reportedly Ring safety digicam footage recorded March 5 at a house close to Bellflower and Del Amo boulevards.
Within the video, a white sedan and a darkish grey sedan pull as much as the driveway the place what seems to be a light-weight grey sedan is parked. Two individuals emerge from the white automobile, with one particular person ducking below the sunshine grey sedan with a flashlight. Then a number of individuals jack up the automobile.
Whereas the sunshine grey sedan is being lifted, somebody shouts on the thieves to go away.
One of many thieves then makes use of a bat to smash the again brake lights of the grey sedan, and an alarm goes off.
The thieves shout expletives on the bystander earlier than dashing off.
“The one info out there is what's seen on the video, no additional info is being offered right now,” the Sheriff’s Division mentioned in an electronic mail.
Lt. Francisco Maldonado mentioned the Lakewood station wouldn't present particulars and deferred all feedback to the Sheriff’s Division’s info workplace.
Grady, town spokesperson, mentioned Lakewood “is usually a quiet and protected residential neighborhood with low crime charges.”
Final yr, town noticed a discount in total property crime, he mentioned.
Days after the reported thefts, on March 8, Lakewood Mayor Jeff Wooden mentioned he and a number of other colleagues traveled to Sacramento, the place they participated in a press convention “to help laws to handle the epidemic of catalytic converter thefts.”
Wooden mentioned they have been monitoring a number of items of laws associated to the thefts.
Thieves could make lots of of dollars promoting catalytic converters to auto elements suppliers or scrapyards, The Instances reported final yr.
The gadgets may be melted and the dear metals, equivalent to palladium and rhodium, extracted. Due to the worldwide demand for the important emission-control gadgets, simply an oz of the valuable metals may be value hundreds of dollars.
In Los Angeles County, the Sheriff’s Division reported a 400% improve in catalytic converter thefts from 2019 to 2020. Throughout California, catalytic converter replacements have elevated greater than 90% throughout 2020, mentioned Doug Shupe, a spokesman for the American Car Assn.
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