OLDS — So many vehicles are being stolen in southern Alberta these days that police don’t bother dusting them for fingerprints when they’re found, according to Olds RCMP acting Cpl. Kurtis Milbrandt.
Milbrandt says the case of a cube van stolen Dec. 21 from Sim’s Furniture in Olds is just the latest such incident.
“(There’s) too many of them; absolutely,” he said.
“From my experience, southern Alberta gets what, 200 or 300 stolen vehicles at any given time during a month. And there’s no way the forensic guys ever keep up to that,” Milbrandt said.
He said in the Olds detachment, four vehicles — including the cube van — were stolen during the Christmas period.
Milbrandt said residents and police are seeing an uptick in vehicle thefts now because the perpetrators — often from Red Deer — who commit those crimes are back out on the streets after having served their jail time.
“Once those guys in Red Deer are caught — they’re typically picked up for something else unrelated or they’ve breached (violated bail conditions) — they’re back in jail and all of a sudden our thefts die down,” he said.
“We saw that this summer. A lot of our regulars were in jail and the thefts were at an all-time low for us for the summer period. But they’re back out again and all of a sudden we’re going to see a spike (in crime) again.”
