By BRENT MARTIN
St. Joseph Post
Auto thefts in St. Joseph have tapered off after becoming a growing problem the past few years.
Police Chief Chris Connally says the trend has finally started going in the right direction.
“2016 was when it first went up, bounced up,” Connally tells host Barry Birr on the KFEQ Hotline. “This year we’re actually about 120 less auto thefts so far this year than we had last year. This year we should be about the lowest since 2016. We might be pretty close to that 2016 level.”
St. Joseph hit a high of 781 motor vehicle thefts in one year. At present, St. Joeph police have investigated 275 stolen vehicle reports this year.
Connally says there are a variety of ways to steal a car.
“Where someone used their car or they were out with somebody, they went in the store and this person they know took off with their car. There’s a lot of those also,” Connally says. “But there’s a lot of them where people leave their keys in their car, they go roaming and, fortunately, in our area we recover most of those cars successfully.”