Plate thefts become increasing problem in campus lots, garages

When Adrian Ewing went to the Tyndall Garage on Sept. 13 and saw a ticket on his car window and a boot on the back tire, he couldn't help but feel relieved.

Just minutes before, his mother had left a message on his cell phone saying that the police had found Ewing's 1992 Honda Accord earlier that day with smashed windows and slashed tires. Ewing, who was in class at the time, was shocked to hear the messages and went directly to his car.

Although everything on his car was intact, he did notice that one thing was different.

Somebody had replaced his license plate with another, which turned out to be from a 1992 Honda Accord reported stolen on Sept. 8.

"I was scared," Ewing, an undeclared freshman, said. "I though my car was stolen and busted up. I was more relieved when I saw somebody else's plate on it."

This was the third reported license plate theft in the past two weeks. A plate was stolen from a Jeep Laredo parked at the Main Library on Sept. 15 and another was stolen from a UA service vehicle on Sept. 10.

Sgt. Eugene Mejia, UAPD spokesman, said thieves steal license plates to cover up previous crimes.

"Criminals will take a plate for criminal reasons," he said. "Either they will place that plate on a stolen car or they will place it on their own car and use it in a crime and then get rid of it."

When stolen license plates are used in criminal investigations, the timeline often ends with the original car that it was stolen from, which is usually not involved, Mejia said.

"After that, we have to find other ways to identify the suspect," he said.

Dealing with license plate theft is a difficult problem because the license plates themselves are so easily removed, Mejia said.

"There's really no known way to secure a plate that would render it incapable of being stolen," he said.

Mejia said the best defense against license plate theft is to communicate with UAPD when suspicious people are seen or activities occur in the garages and parking lots. People that may be considered suspicious, Mejia said, are those who may not look like students and appear to be loitering.

But, given the time it takes to remove a license plate, sometimes that is not enough.

"It usually only takes a couple of screws being removed to access the plate," he said. "So you're talking a couple of seconds to a matter of minutes for a plate to be removed."

Unlike Ewing, some people who are victimized do not know that their plate has been stolen.

Simply knowing the plate number and checking it often will give people the opportunity to notify police quickly if a plate is stolen, Mejia said.

Part of the problem with identifying stolen plates is that car owners can repaint their cars without re-registering.

Although running a plate through the police database will show the make, model and ownership of most vehicles, often times police cannot determine if a plate or car has been stolen unless they physically stop the car, Mejia said.

In Ewing's case, had the other Honda Accord with his license plate not been smashed up, it may still be on the road. Worse yet, it could have been used in a future crime, with Ewing's name on the registration.