Police are using “bait” cars to catch car thieves:
‘As soon as a car thief opens the door, he triggers the cameras that are hidden inside,’ Johnson said. ‘And you never know where they might be hidden. They could be in the dashboard. It could be right here in the rear view mirror. It could even be hidden in the clock.’
In Columbus, Ohio, where 8,000 cars are stolen each year, police couldn’t resist adding their own special ‘gotcha.’
They program the bait car stereo to play a familiar song, the theme song from ‘Cops,’ once the suspects are surrounded.
‘Bad boys, bad boys, what ya donna do? What ya gonna do when they come for you,’ blares one stereo on a tape showing two men locked in a bait car with their hands up.
‘It distracts them for the 2 to 3 seconds it takes us to get up to the car, put them at gunpoint, get their hands up and secure,’ Yates said.
And police say most suspects aren’t just car thieves. Most have guns, drugs and arrest records.
In Minneapolis, “bait” cars dropped car theft by 35 percent in six months. (Hat tip to Boing Boing.)