Car thieves switching out license plates in Ballard

Meghan Walker Ballard

It’s apparently quite common: thieves switching out license plates from stolen cars. It happened to a Ballard resident recently, who told KIRO TV that the swap went unnoticed for two days, until he was filling up gas and noticed his plates were different.

Someone had taken Tom Trombly’s plates, and replaced them with ones from a stolen car. He was able to pinpoint when it happened by contacting GoodToGo; he uses the 520 bridge for his daily commute, so the electronic tolling system could tell him when his plates changed.

Seattle Police told KIRO that the stolen plates came off a similar car, which was stolen from downtown Seattle the same night his plates were swapped out.

However, license plate theft is actually at a three-year low; there have been 470 reported cases so far this year, while last year, there were 859. SPD told KIRO that they suspect license plate thefts have gone down because they’ve gotten better at tracking them, making it a less lucrative crime.

24 thoughts to “Car thieves switching out license plates in Ballard”

  3. So the correct headline is: License Plate Thefts at 3 Year Low, and you should have led with “only 470 license plate thefts so far in 2018, after 859 in 2017, and even more in 2016.” But that’s not sensationalistic, and that doesn’t drive hits and stir up neighborhood paranoia. So instead of “3 Year Low” you simply say “Car Thieves Switching Out Plates in Ballard” and “It’s apparently quite common”.

    KIRO buried the decline too — it’s nowhere in the lead and you have to scroll down 2/3 of the way through their story before they finally tell you about the steep decrease in plate thefts.

    Mean world syndrome doesn’t come out of nowhere. It’s caused by the way the media chooses to distort the facts to stoke fear and keep their audience interested. Jon Steward said it best: “Stop. Stop hurting America.”

    1. Well, Damn. I guess the junkies crapping in the park and stealing bikes all vanished, too?
      You should run for mayor with that kind of cuckery. Lemme know what you see in Commons Park or Bergen Place after 11pm, Sunshine.

      1. All vanished? No, plate theft is at a three year low, but it hasn’t vanished. Nobody said it vanished. KIRO said “2017 had 859 license plate theft cases, and 2016 had 924, according to SPD.” And only 470 for the first 9 months of 2018. At that rate there will be about 625 for the year? So 924 -> 859 -> ~625. What is cuckery? What does it have to do with those parks? What does it have to do with bike theft?

        Security screws are cheap insurance, and then you can kind of forget about this issue. It does happen sometimes. It’s just getting a lot better lately, which is good news. Why are you yelling at me? What are you angry about? Do you always get this angry when a category of theft decreases?

        1. Mind if I weigh in for a sec? It was me in the article.

          You could say they tucked away that plate theft is coming down, but really it was clearly graphed into the discussion, so I think they did a good job positioning it more as a PSA.

          And yeah, security screws are cheap insurance as you mention; however, what they neglected to say was that when I spoke with the officer, he told me that those really don’t do the trick anymore. Thieves can get right through those with a leatherman tool and a good tug on the bolt, and I think that was done to mine. I think that was worth greater mention maybe, but again, they did a decent job IMHO.

          What I will say is that it the whole experience was just a giant PAIN IN THE ASS, because it ruined my Saturday having to wait for more than 5 hours for the officers to show because they were attending to other cases in Ballard on a Saturday morning. I couldn’t file online or at a precinct, as the police noted that it had to be in person. On top of that, the DOL was closed not because of the Labor Day holiday, but because of a weekend long system wide update. Joy of joys. No DOL left me SOL through Tuesday.

          I’m not sure I follow the tangential from DogBaby above on the junkies, but if he/she is trying to draw the correlation, then I will say the officer didn’t think this was likely a junkie operation. He noted that if they’re going after cars like mine, swapping plates to minimize exposure to cars their stealing. It took some know how.

          Lastly, I will say the officer was kick ass. Smart, knowledgeable, collaborative. I’m glad he’s working in Ballard.

          And as Forest Gump might say, “That’s all I have to say about that.” :)

        2. @ asking: new name, same old blah blah blah. I guess nothing ever happens to your S, just everybody else. I’m still waiting to hear just who made YOU our local expert. Elenchos, you’re still an apologist for the city. You’re just like a 14 year old with snippy answers for EVERYTHING. For Christ sakes, your arguments are plain stupid/silly. Remind me of my brother, who knows everything, and he’ll tell you too. Move your wallet, you are STILL mumbling

          1. Let me get this straight: you think I am sock puppeting? You think I’m using multiple screen names? That’s your theory? And you think that’s not OK? How many screen names to you post under, “Scott”?

            (The ‘move your wallet’ thing you post under your various screen names is hilarious. It’s weird and off the wall, and nobody talks like that. Never change.)

        1. Look up “social contract” and get back to me, Enabler. Now that I think about it Truth, you would probably know the definition of “cuckery” rather keenly. Please go on.

          1. Noun

            cuckold (plural cuckolds)

            1. A man married to an unfaithful wife, especially when he is unaware or unaccepting of the fact.
            2. A West Indian plectognath fish, Rhinesomus.
            3. The cowfish, Acanthostracion quadricornis and allied species.

            So how does this relate to your sensationalist claims of homelessness?

  4. They steal plates to conceal stolen vehicles. People notice when their car is stolen, but not so much when their plates get stolen so thieves have less chance of getting caught swapping the plates out on a stolen car every few days. Check your plates every time you get in your car. Report stolen plates immediately.

    2. The woman probably doesn’t like the law so she thinks that it’s fine to go ahead and ignore it… Kind of like stopping for pedestrians at crosswalks. No?

    3. That’s right, and the city installed a porta potty a block away from the vagrants. Isn’t that what the vagrant enablers tell us we should do? Just provide dumpsters and they’ll use them? (they don’t). Just provide needle disposal boxes and they’ll use them? (they don’t). And just provide porta potties and they’ll use them. No, they’ll still continue to take a dump on the doorsteps of nearby business owners.

      Why? They do it out of spite. They will drop trou right in front of people these days, because they have no respect for others. They leave their dirty needles in parks ad playgrounds, because they don’t give a rat’s ass if some innocent kid get’s pricked because of their filthy habit. If they don’t respect the rest of us, why should we respect them? Just because they’re “homeless” doesn’t mean they’re incapable of acting like decent human beings, does it? Everything we give them to encourage them to be less of a nuisance they ignore. They just don’t give a shit. And why should they? They know there will be no consequences.

      1. Why do you switch back and forth between “hayduke” and “guest” and “Virtue Signaler Revenue Racket” and “Durkan-istan”? And “Writing this Comment While Driving” and “elenchoss” and “Public Intellectual” and “Weepy Mike”and “Old Ballard F@rt”? And “McManus” etc etc. So many names! But you re-use the same odd style, the same bag of insult words. The way you pick mocking names of whomever you’re angry at today? Everybody you hate is “weepy”. You love calling people weepy. And “enabler”. Everybody you hate is an “enabler”. You have a really small vocabulary, by the way.

        You really stick out. It’s obviously you. Everyone can tell. Why not pick one name and stick to it?

        Oh, what were you saying about respect? What were you saying about being a decent human being? What were you saying about spite? You don’t like nuisances, apparently? Does violating this site’s rules against disrespectful comments, racism, sexism, homophobia, misrepresenting yourself as someone else, repetitive, and inflammatory posts?

        You’ve been posting your message of respect and human decency for several years, using the same nasty language and insults and fake names. Somehow you’ve conveyed something other than respect and decency. I wonder why.

  6. I could give a rats ass what the media darlings say. To me, they are mostly complicit with this city going to S. If this happens to YOU it’s a big deal. If it’s happening at all, it’s NO good. I guess I will never get exactly why so many feel crime is just part of the big city experience. I have a hunch many here now are from other places that were way worse, for now.

    1. We have an example of a specific category of crime *decreasing*, and to you that’s “the city going to S”? It’s getting BETTER. Acknowledging the fact that it’s getting better is not saying “license plate theft is good”.

      “If this happens to YOU it’s a big deal. ” YES! Correct. It is definitely a bad experience to have to deal with your plates being stolen. Nobody said otherwise. That’s why FEWER license plate thefts is GOOD. Having the BAD THING happen LESS is called IMPROVEMENT.

      “If it’s happening at all, it’s NO good.” Everything is either GOOD or NO GOOD. No such thing as better or worse? No such thing as improvement? The other six year olds agree. GOOD/NO GOOD. The adults have more words than that.

      “I guess I will never get exactly why so many feel crime is just part of the big city experience.” Do you think the norm for a city is to have ZERO license plate thefts? If even one license plate is stolen, then it’s “NO good”? I would say that this type of thing happens in every single city. And every town, and village.

    2. Here’s something you wrote criticizing students protesting gun violence:

      “More kids will die today in auto wrecks/crashes, yet nobody is asking for bans on cars or blaming GM when a Chevy is in a crash.”

      You reject extreme measures to reduce deaths in car wrecks. You reject increasing regulation of guns to deaths by gun violence. You want us to just acdept these things as just part of life? What are we going to do ban all cars? Ban all guns? No? You want us to accept a few traffic or gun deaths as part of the price of freedom?

      But a few license plate thefts? NO!!! That demands a response. Something must be done because EVEN ONE license plate theft is one too many? How much higher to you want your taxes raised to eliminate all crime? How much of your freedom are you willing to give up?

  7. Ballard Washington is the biggest shit hole of a place to live in America. It is dirty, it is toxic, it is overrun by pretentious white tech assholes, homeless people and it is ridiculously overpriced.

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