Editor’s note: Darlene Carpenter is the mother of Sun Arts Editor Joe Payne. For our story, she recently opened up about her experience of having her car stolen.
On the night of July 31, 2012, in a suburb near McCoy and Miller, Darlene Carpenter decided to park her dark red, pristine 2005 Chrysler 300C on the street by her house instead of in her driveway. The next morning, Carpenter noticed the car was missing. Her husband had no idea where it was. Panic soon gave way to the realization that her car was gone: It had been stolen.
The theft was not only a major blow to Carpenter, it’s part of a problem that has erupted in Santa Maria over the last three years. From 2012 to 2014, the number of reported auto thefts in the city more than doubled, jumping from 399 to 883, according to Santa Maria Police Department statistics. This year, area law enforcement decided to take a new approach and formed a task force to deal with the issue.
On Jan. 21, the SMPD announced it was forming the task force in collaboration with the California Highway Patrol and the Guadalupe Police Department to try and cut the number of auto thefts in Santa Maria by 25 percent this year. The task force went into effect at the beginning of January.
Santa Maria, Santa Barbara County’s largest city, also holds the distinction of having more car thefts than any other incorporated area in the county. Santa Barbara—a city of similar size—only reported 148 auto thefts in 2012, according to the FBI’s Uniform Crime Statistics. More recent figures weren’t readily available.
Lompoc, with a population of around 43,000, only experienced 72 auto thefts in 2014, according to the Lompoc Police Department. Guadalupe only had three reported auto thefts in 2012, according to the FBI’s crime database.
In 2013, Santa Maria accounted for the majority of motor vehicle thefts in the county. That year, the city had 730 auto thefts out of the county’s 1,146.
In 2012, Santa Maria had a higher per capita rate of stolen cars than Los Angeles, a city of more than 3 million people. In that year, the Los Angeles Police Department reported 15,084 stolen cars. Breaking it down, L.A. had roughly 391 stolen cars per 100,000 people. Santa Maria experienced 399 auto thefts during the same year with a population of about 102,000.
Why does Santa Maria have such a high rate of auto thefts? It’s because people aren’t careful securing their vehicles here, according to SMPD Chief Ralph Martin.
“People aren’t taking the time to secure their cars in Santa Maria where people in Santa Barbara do,” Martin said, adding that auto theft is a crime of opportunity because people leave their doors unlocked and keys in the ignition. Sometimes people high on methamphetamine steal a car, use it for a day, and then dump it, Martin said.
Most of the reported thefts were on the north side of town, according to a map compiled by the SMPD. The reason for this, Martin said, is because the area is more densely populated than the south side of the city.
Martin said gangs have nothing to do with the thefts, but he also mentioned that the thefts are sometimes connected to other crimes such as robbery. One car theft can also span multiple cities, connecting a city like Santa Maria with L.A. An undercover SMPD officer told the Sun that at least one car stolen in L.A. was found in a Santa Maria “chop shop” busted by police a year and a half ago.
A breakdown of the data shows that Hondas are overwhelmingly the vehicles of choice for thieves, accounting for at least 45 percent of stolen vehicles in Santa Maria. Of that set, Hondas with VTEC engines manufactured in the mid-1990s are the most popular, according to the undercover officer. One of the ways thieves steal those cars is by using a shaved key, which can be used to open doors and turn ignition switches on multiple vehicles, according to Martin.
The statistics also also show that most of the vehicles are recovered. Of the 883 that were stolen last year, 602 were found, and 70 percent of them were within city limits.
Through the new task force, police have already caught at least one car thief near Marian Regional Medical Center, Martin said.
He wasn’t specific about what measures will be taken to reduce auto thefts, but for now, he said the department is relying on news media and public service announcements to get the word out. Martin said he was toying with the idea of using bait cars.
Martin said that people could avoid having their cars stolen by simply locking their doors, or using anti-theft devices such as The Club, which locks the steering wheel into place (although thieves have discovered ways to get around this, too).
The task force could be a relief for the city and for citizens like Carpenter, who felt on edge in the months after her car was stolen. Her Chrysler was eventually recovered—six months later—but the incident left its mark.
Carpenter said she’s much smarter about how she goes about keeping her car safe. She doesn’t share keys anymore—not even with her husband, who has since installed motion detector lights. Her neighbor also installed a video surveillance system zeroed in on her driveway. And she keeps her keys in a safe place and always keeps her car locked.
“It’s hard to lose your car because it’s something that you value,” Carpenter said. “It was really eye opening.”
Contact Staff Writer David Minsky at dminsky@santamariasun.com.
This article appears in Jan 29 – Feb 5, 2015.