When an Independence Township man woke one late July morning to discover his laptop’left in an unlocked car outside his home’had been stolen by thieves in the night, he sprang to action.
Using a different computer, the man went to Craigslist.com, a local and mostly-free online forum featuring classified ads in categories like jobs, services, household merchandise and romance.
There, already posted on Craigslist, the man found what appeared to be his computer, for sale, presumably by the person who’d stolen it from his car.
After getting the seller to respond via email, the man arranged a meeting in Kroger’s parking lot on Sashabaw Road.
When the seller arrived and popped open the laptop, the man recognized everything on the desktop. It was, indeed, his stolen computer.
The man signaled his wife and friends’waiting inconspicuously’to surround the seller’s car and call 911.
On Aug. 17, after several weeks of investigation and numerous interviews with suspects involved in the caper, Det. Bill Baldwin of the Oakland County Sheriff’s Office Independence Township substation submitted a package to the Oakland County Prosecutor’s Office. Baldwin was requesting warrants against five young men allegedly involved in the incident, as well as a string of other thefts’mostly from unlocked cars’in and around the township.
Three of the five, ages 17 and 18, are Independence Township residents. Two others are relatives of the Independence Township men, who were visiting from Georgia.
Between them, the young men are facing five counts of larceny from an automobile, (LFA), three counts of receiving and concealing stolen property, one count of home invasion and one count of UDAA’unlawfully driving away an automobile.
When the man found his missing computer listed on Craigslist, he called the detective for advice.
‘I advised him to set up the meeting,? said Baldwin, noting he told the man, and would tell others, there was no need to actually make contact with the person; just wait to see that they arrive, call police and point out the suspect when deputies arrive.
In fact, when deputies arrived on the scene at Kroger’s, the man was able to provide documentation proving the computer was his; inside the car driven by the young man attempting to sell the stolen computer, deputies located other stolen merchandise: iPods, cell phones, headphones and drug paraphernalia.
But while these five men face charges, others continue stealing from unlocked cars. The phenomenon is not Independence Township-specific.
‘We’re seeing quite a few LFAs lately,? said Sgt. Tim Willis, commander of the Springfield Township substation. ‘Once in a while we get a smashed (car) window, but most of the time the stuff comes up missing from an unlocked vehicle.?
Willis, who came on board at the Springfield substation just last year, said he wasn’t sure whether the township was seeing an increase over previous years or not, but noted the thefts are definitely ‘crimes of opportunity.?
‘They go for the easy mark,? he said. ‘Just because your car is in your driveway or in front of your house doesn’t mean it’s safe. If you leave the car unlocked and you leave items on the seat or on the dash, sooner or later they’re likely to get stolen.?