Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Okay, you can hear us now, Joshua Sharf, I can
hear you now.
Speaker 2 (00:04):
I don't know what was going on. It's weird.
Speaker 3 (00:06):
Well, it's my fault. I was bluetooth'sed over to us
to a device that I didn't have. Shut up, I'm
going into the void.
Speaker 1 (00:14):
Yeah, I'm gonna blame you. It's clearly your fault. Let
me let me ask you this. I talked about your
column earlier in the week that you shared about getting your.
Speaker 2 (00:24):
Car stolen, and.
Speaker 1 (00:26):
You didn't put in the article like what shape was
it in when you got it back?
Speaker 3 (00:30):
Yeah, it actually was not in bad shape all things considered.
They the biggest issue was with the steering column which
they used at the hot wire the thing that was
of course, when the police called and said, hey, we
have it, you know it's drivable. They didn't tell me
obviously it had been hot wired that I wasn't drivable
by me because having never stolen a car, I didn't
(00:52):
know how to start one that was hot wired. So
we had it towed and that's going to have to
be fixed. They there was a winch that was pretty
new that they disassembled and sold, and that was disappointing.
And then they cut into the saft top a little bit,
but you know, on the whole for two days, it
could have been a heck of a lot worse.
Speaker 1 (01:12):
Well, I've never known someone who didn't have their car trash.
And I've probably known five people, which is not a
lot in the grand scheme of things, and not all
here in Denver that have had their car stolen, and
every single one of them got it back and they
were destroyed inside outside, just malicious vandalism, you know what
I mean, just knifing through seats and doors and stuff
(01:33):
like that. So you're very lucky in that respect, first
of all, that you got it back, and you got
it back in decent shape.
Speaker 3 (01:39):
Well I got it I very quickly, which I think helped.
There was a friend of mine who had his car
stolen this back east, had his car stolen and it
was used, as is often the case, in a series
of robberies.
Speaker 4 (01:50):
And he got it back about five.
Speaker 3 (01:52):
Weeks later, and it was just in terrible knision, completely destroyed,
And I told him, you know, if they're going to
use it in a series of robberies, the least they
could had done was cutting in on the deal.
Speaker 1 (02:01):
Yes, exactly, well, you didn did a deeper dive, obviously
inspired by your own personal situation, I'm guessing into Colorado
car theft overall.
Speaker 3 (02:11):
Yeah, it's been talked about quite a bit. You know,
we had this huge run up of car theft here
in the state basically post people really noticed it twenty
twenty and thereafter, but it had been on the rise
even before then, and pretty much it had been averaging
statewide for many years, almost twenty years, about one thousand
(02:34):
vehicles stolen a month, which is which is not so
bad for an entire state. But then at the end
of twenty twenty and into twenty twenty two, it doubled
and then doubled again, so we were getting about four
thousand cars stolen a month, and in Denver itself, not well,
in the Denver area itself, car deaths had risen to
(02:55):
about one thousand a month, about twelve hundred a month,
which you know, prior to that was what you had
seen statewide. So now suddenly you're seeing that much just
in the Denver area.
Speaker 4 (03:04):
Wow, And it really and people noticed.
Speaker 3 (03:06):
This, and people noticed there were when when articles came
out a couple of years ago about how Colorado was
finally number one in something and it turned out to
be turned out to be car theft.
Speaker 1 (03:16):
Well, and it was I read more than once that
Denver International Airport was the number one location where you're
going to get your car stolen.
Speaker 4 (03:24):
Yeah it's easy there, right, Oh sure, I mean got
any time cameras.
Speaker 3 (03:27):
But yeah, it's a target rich environment, as they say,
that's for sure.
Speaker 2 (03:30):
So where are we now, Joshua?
Speaker 1 (03:32):
And as a matter of fact, I've got an email
in my email box that I'm going to respond to
after the show from a guy who works in insurance.
And when I talked about your column the other day,
there's a lot of sort of unintended consequences of this
kind of car theft, and our increase in insurance rates is.
Speaker 2 (03:50):
Just one of them.
Speaker 3 (03:51):
Well, absolutely, I mean you certainly see an increase in insurance.
In my case, this is the second time, once by
accident and now by a theft. This is the second
time in seven months that the car has been totaled.
So yeah, yeah, it's still it's still going to turn
out to be driving. It has to be some sort
of record, but it's still drivable or will be drivable
once the mechanic ends. Up fixing the steering columns.
Speaker 4 (04:12):
Right right, But it's there are there are obviously.
Speaker 3 (04:15):
Criminal aspects to this that stretch beyond.
Speaker 4 (04:18):
Just the car theft itself.
Speaker 3 (04:20):
Obviously, the much of the reason that somebody steals a
car is not just the benefit of being able to
sell maybe chop it up and sell it for cars
that happens, but also the anonymity that comes with having
a car that can be traced to you exactly then
being able to go and commit other crimes, and frequently
that's part of a larger criminal operation, not just some
(04:43):
individual knocking off a bunch of you know, a bunch
of grocery stores or something.
Speaker 1 (04:47):
One of my texters said, Mandy, tell him to do
a meth check. We have friends that got their car
back in decent shape, but it failed a meth test.
Speaker 2 (04:55):
So you got yours back really quick.
Speaker 1 (04:57):
Was there any evidence of drug use or drug any
thing in there there?
Speaker 3 (05:02):
The insurance guy said that he's found evidence of drug paraphernalia.
I'm not sure that. What I didn't smell when I
when I got to the car, what I smelled was
a lot of cigarette smoke. I did. I didn't smell
any meth, but he claimed that there was that there
was evidence of drug use in drug paraphernalia, which is
why they totaled it out. That's that's almost always an
(05:22):
immediate total, no matter the value of the car solo
right out at that point, and.
Speaker 2 (05:27):
It sounds like me.
Speaker 1 (05:28):
You're driving a two thousand and five cheap Wrangler. I
drive a car until the wheels fall off. So I'm
guessing this car has been paid off for some time,
and you're not looking to go out and get a
new car. And I'm wondering how many people are in
that same position where you've got that paid off car
and you don't want to have to do anything else.
And now if your car stolen, you're just kind of screwed.
(05:49):
Even if they totally you're going to end up with
a car payment more than likely.
Speaker 3 (05:53):
Yeah, this is the intersection of a couple of levels
of bad legislation. Part of the reason for the takeoff
of car theft after twenty four team, which is when
you started to see it it rise up again, was
a law that was passed that separated the or linked
i should say, the punishment to the value of the
car stolen, so the more valuable the car was that
(06:13):
was stolen, the the higher the punishment, which created a
great incentive obviously to go and steal cars that were,
you know, older cars, cars that were in maybe are
not such great condition, cars that you know, maybe the
average person drives or or grabs someone who's who's you know,
in the lower lower end of the economic spectrum that
they drive, and so they were the ones most at
risk now for having their cars stolen. That was at
(06:35):
the same time that we had cash for clunkers, which
took a whole lot of quality replacement cars off the
market and has has has contributed to the increase in
car prices.
Speaker 4 (06:47):
So I obviously, if if they had not retrieved, my.
Speaker 3 (06:49):
Car would have been looking for something used. But it
puts people that can put people who aren't as fortunate
in a real bind where now they've they've got a car,
they didn't have a car payment, now either got a
scrape up cash or it's an additional cost to them.
Speaker 1 (07:03):
Well, Joshua, I think it's a great column, and I
appreciate you sharing it, but do you feel like we're
moving enough in the right direction. I know that Aurora,
after being very complacent, and I had conversations with law
enforcement in other areas about Aurora's complacency, Like if someone
stole a car from their county and it was taken
to Aurora, they just said it was gone forever. Even
(07:24):
Aurora is like, we're not going to let this kind
of go by the wayside anymore.
Speaker 2 (07:28):
Are we moving in the right direction enough? Do you think?
Speaker 3 (07:32):
I think Aurora is moving in the right direction. They're
the ones where it was found, and they were very
aggressive and finding it and moving once they saw good,
once they saw it was there. Denver, I think, unfortunately,
is moving in the wrong direction. And I admit I
had mixed feelings about the license plate reader cameras beforehand.
I understand some of the privacy issues, but it was
a license plate reader that identified my car, and I
(07:54):
will tell you that that if Denver now has a
desire to get rid of it, did not renew the
contract at the end of the year. For those allegedly
over privately private they want to claim it's over privacy concerns,
but during the debate, it was because they were concerned
that it could be used to tractive legal aliens and
that help Ice in that effort, and they were quite.
Speaker 4 (08:14):
Overt about that.
Speaker 3 (08:15):
By the way, that's not that's not something that's intuited.
Speaker 4 (08:18):
Uh and and so I think Denver.
Speaker 3 (08:19):
Unfortunately, is moving in the wrong direction while others are
moving in the right in the right direction.
Speaker 1 (08:23):
Jocking anyway, Joshua shar thank you for the great column
complete Colorado dot Com.
Speaker 2 (08:28):
I just put it on the blog.
Speaker 1 (08:29):
You guys can read it, and I hope no one
else steals your car.
Speaker 3 (08:33):
Thank you very much. Mandy.
Speaker 2 (08:34):
All right, I have a great day, Joshua
Okay, you can hear us now, Joshua Sharf, I can
hear you now.
Speaker 2 (00:04):
I don't know what was going on. It's weird.
Speaker 3 (00:06):
Well, it's my fault. I was bluetooth'sed over to us
to a device that I didn't have. Shut up, I'm
going into the void.
Speaker 1 (00:14):
Yeah, I'm gonna blame you. It's clearly your fault. Let
me let me ask you this. I talked about your
column earlier in the week that you shared about getting your.
Speaker 2 (00:24):
Car stolen, and.
Speaker 1 (00:26):
You didn't put in the article like what shape was
it in when you got it back?
Speaker 3 (00:30):
Yeah, it actually was not in bad shape all things considered.
They the biggest issue was with the steering column which
they used at the hot wire the thing that was
of course, when the police called and said, hey, we
have it, you know it's drivable. They didn't tell me
obviously it had been hot wired that I wasn't drivable
by me because having never stolen a car, I didn't
(00:52):
know how to start one that was hot wired. So
we had it towed and that's going to have to
be fixed. They there was a winch that was pretty
new that they disassembled and sold, and that was disappointing.
And then they cut into the saft top a little bit,
but you know, on the whole for two days, it
could have been a heck of a lot worse.
Speaker 1 (01:12):
Well, I've never known someone who didn't have their car trash.
And I've probably known five people, which is not a
lot in the grand scheme of things, and not all
here in Denver that have had their car stolen, and
every single one of them got it back and they
were destroyed inside outside, just malicious vandalism, you know what
I mean, just knifing through seats and doors and stuff
(01:33):
like that. So you're very lucky in that respect, first
of all, that you got it back, and you got
it back in decent shape.
Speaker 3 (01:39):
Well I got it I very quickly, which I think helped.
There was a friend of mine who had his car
stolen this back east, had his car stolen and it
was used, as is often the case, in a series
of robberies.
Speaker 4 (01:50):
And he got it back about five.
Speaker 3 (01:52):
Weeks later, and it was just in terrible knision, completely destroyed,
And I told him, you know, if they're going to
use it in a series of robberies, the least they
could had done was cutting in on the deal.
Speaker 1 (02:01):
Yes, exactly, well, you didn did a deeper dive, obviously
inspired by your own personal situation, I'm guessing into Colorado
car theft overall.
Speaker 3 (02:11):
Yeah, it's been talked about quite a bit. You know,
we had this huge run up of car theft here
in the state basically post people really noticed it twenty
twenty and thereafter, but it had been on the rise
even before then, and pretty much it had been averaging
statewide for many years, almost twenty years, about one thousand
(02:34):
vehicles stolen a month, which is which is not so
bad for an entire state. But then at the end
of twenty twenty and into twenty twenty two, it doubled
and then doubled again, so we were getting about four
thousand cars stolen a month, and in Denver itself, not well,
in the Denver area itself, car deaths had risen to
(02:55):
about one thousand a month, about twelve hundred a month,
which you know, prior to that was what you had
seen statewide. So now suddenly you're seeing that much just
in the Denver area.
Speaker 4 (03:04):
Wow, And it really and people noticed.
Speaker 3 (03:06):
This, and people noticed there were when when articles came
out a couple of years ago about how Colorado was
finally number one in something and it turned out to
be turned out to be car theft.
Speaker 1 (03:16):
Well, and it was I read more than once that
Denver International Airport was the number one location where you're
going to get your car stolen.
Speaker 4 (03:24):
Yeah it's easy there, right, Oh sure, I mean got
any time cameras.
Speaker 3 (03:27):
But yeah, it's a target rich environment, as they say,
that's for sure.
Speaker 2 (03:30):
So where are we now, Joshua?
Speaker 1 (03:32):
And as a matter of fact, I've got an email
in my email box that I'm going to respond to
after the show from a guy who works in insurance.
And when I talked about your column the other day,
there's a lot of sort of unintended consequences of this
kind of car theft, and our increase in insurance rates is.
Speaker 2 (03:50):
Just one of them.
Speaker 3 (03:51):
Well, absolutely, I mean you certainly see an increase in insurance.
In my case, this is the second time, once by
accident and now by a theft. This is the second
time in seven months that the car has been totaled.
So yeah, yeah, it's still it's still going to turn
out to be driving. It has to be some sort
of record, but it's still drivable or will be drivable
once the mechanic ends. Up fixing the steering columns.
Speaker 4 (04:12):
Right right, But it's there are there are obviously.
Speaker 3 (04:15):
Criminal aspects to this that stretch beyond.
Speaker 4 (04:18):
Just the car theft itself.
Speaker 3 (04:20):
Obviously, the much of the reason that somebody steals a
car is not just the benefit of being able to
sell maybe chop it up and sell it for cars
that happens, but also the anonymity that comes with having
a car that can be traced to you exactly then
being able to go and commit other crimes, and frequently
that's part of a larger criminal operation, not just some
(04:43):
individual knocking off a bunch of you know, a bunch
of grocery stores or something.
Speaker 1 (04:47):
One of my texters said, Mandy, tell him to do
a meth check. We have friends that got their car
back in decent shape, but it failed a meth test.
Speaker 2 (04:55):
So you got yours back really quick.
Speaker 1 (04:57):
Was there any evidence of drug use or drug any
thing in there there?
Speaker 3 (05:02):
The insurance guy said that he's found evidence of drug paraphernalia.
I'm not sure that. What I didn't smell when I
when I got to the car, what I smelled was
a lot of cigarette smoke. I did. I didn't smell
any meth, but he claimed that there was that there
was evidence of drug use in drug paraphernalia, which is
why they totaled it out. That's that's almost always an
(05:22):
immediate total, no matter the value of the car solo
right out at that point, and.
Speaker 2 (05:27):
It sounds like me.
Speaker 1 (05:28):
You're driving a two thousand and five cheap Wrangler. I
drive a car until the wheels fall off. So I'm
guessing this car has been paid off for some time,
and you're not looking to go out and get a
new car. And I'm wondering how many people are in
that same position where you've got that paid off car
and you don't want to have to do anything else.
And now if your car stolen, you're just kind of screwed.
(05:49):
Even if they totally you're going to end up with
a car payment more than likely.
Speaker 3 (05:53):
Yeah, this is the intersection of a couple of levels
of bad legislation. Part of the reason for the takeoff
of car theft after twenty four team, which is when
you started to see it it rise up again, was
a law that was passed that separated the or linked
i should say, the punishment to the value of the
car stolen, so the more valuable the car was that
(06:13):
was stolen, the the higher the punishment, which created a
great incentive obviously to go and steal cars that were,
you know, older cars, cars that were in maybe are
not such great condition, cars that you know, maybe the
average person drives or or grabs someone who's who's you know,
in the lower lower end of the economic spectrum that
they drive, and so they were the ones most at
risk now for having their cars stolen. That was at
(06:35):
the same time that we had cash for clunkers, which
took a whole lot of quality replacement cars off the
market and has has has contributed to the increase in
car prices.
Speaker 4 (06:47):
So I obviously, if if they had not retrieved, my.
Speaker 3 (06:49):
Car would have been looking for something used. But it
puts people that can put people who aren't as fortunate
in a real bind where now they've they've got a car,
they didn't have a car payment, now either got a
scrape up cash or it's an additional cost to them.
Speaker 1 (07:03):
Well, Joshua, I think it's a great column, and I
appreciate you sharing it, but do you feel like we're
moving enough in the right direction. I know that Aurora,
after being very complacent, and I had conversations with law
enforcement in other areas about Aurora's complacency, Like if someone
stole a car from their county and it was taken
to Aurora, they just said it was gone forever. Even
(07:24):
Aurora is like, we're not going to let this kind
of go by the wayside anymore.
Speaker 2 (07:28):
Are we moving in the right direction enough? Do you think?
Speaker 3 (07:32):
I think Aurora is moving in the right direction. They're
the ones where it was found, and they were very
aggressive and finding it and moving once they saw good,
once they saw it was there. Denver, I think, unfortunately,
is moving in the wrong direction. And I admit I
had mixed feelings about the license plate reader cameras beforehand.
I understand some of the privacy issues, but it was
a license plate reader that identified my car, and I
(07:54):
will tell you that that if Denver now has a
desire to get rid of it, did not renew the
contract at the end of the year. For those allegedly
over privately private they want to claim it's over privacy concerns,
but during the debate, it was because they were concerned
that it could be used to tractive legal aliens and
that help Ice in that effort, and they were quite.
Speaker 4 (08:14):
Overt about that.
Speaker 3 (08:15):
By the way, that's not that's not something that's intuited.
Speaker 4 (08:18):
Uh and and so I think Denver.
Speaker 3 (08:19):
Unfortunately, is moving in the wrong direction while others are
moving in the right in the right direction.
Speaker 1 (08:23):
Jocking anyway, Joshua shar thank you for the great column
complete Colorado dot Com.
Speaker 2 (08:28):
I just put it on the blog.
Speaker 1 (08:29):
You guys can read it, and I hope no one
else steals your car.
Speaker 3 (08:33):
Thank you very much. Mandy.
Speaker 2 (08:34):
All right, I have a great day, Joshua
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