CHICAGO (WBBM NEWSRADIO) – Three southwest suburban police departments have teamed up to stop an influx of thefts from car dealerships in their communities.
The suburbs joining forces – Tinley Park, Orland Park and Orland Hills – have auto businesses on the dealership row along 159th Street.
Tinley Park Police Chief Matthew Walsh said car thieves have been making it easier on themselves by getting a hold of key fobs to turn on vehicles.
“They’ve been posing as customers. They’ll go away and they’ll see where the fobs are and, when the opportunity presents itself, they will grab a handful and leave and then try to come back at a later time to take the cars off the lot,” Walsh said.
He said Tinley Park police will have officers premise check that area more but will also assign its tactical unit to work with Orland Park and Orland Hills.
“They’re going to vary their hours, vary their days off because we’re going to try to identify a pattern of when this is occurring,” Walsh said.
The chief added that dealerships bear some responsibility for preventing the thefts as well even if it’s going to take sales people a little longer to get the key fobs before taking a customer out on a test drive.
“We’re going to make suggestions for the car dealerships to tighten their rein on these fobs and tighten what they do so that the cars aren’t so easily accessible and so easily taken off the lot,” he said.
Also making it difficult to catch the thieves is that they generally wear dark clothing and arrive in stolen cars when they show up to steal cars from the dealerships.
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