Petaluma police thwart holiday grinches with high tech packages

Holiday package thieves beware: Petaluma police are using GPS-enabled decoys to track and catch crooks.|

Thefts from parked cars, doorsteps and elsewhere tend to increase during the holidays in Petaluma, so police have wrapped up some special gifts for would-be crooks this season - GPS tracking devices.

For the second year in a row, law enforcement are planting “bait packages” around Petaluma to catch thieves in the act, the Petaluma Police Department announced.

The packages contain a device that transmits its location to police, alerting officers in the event of a theft, said Lt. Tim Lyons. The department began using the devices in 2015.

“We’ve made 10 arrests” since the program began, Lyons said.

Purchased through a grant, the $200 devices are small enough to be placed discreetly within packages or with big-ticket items like laptops and bicycles, he said.

While the trackers are used year-round, Lyons said police are ramping up the program at a time of year when thefts are known to increase in Petaluma. Incidents include thefts from retailers, parked cars and of packages delivered to front doors.

Police place the packages in areas known to have a high rate of thefts, Lyons said, including like Petaluma park-and-ride lots where cars can go unattended for several hours.

“It’s not like a shopping center where people are walking through the parking lot. People park there in the morning, they leave their car and they come back eight or nine hours later,” he said.

“If they want to go into the car and break the window, they’re committing a crime,” he said of potential thieves.

Police are also using volunteers willing to have bait packages placed outside of their homes, Lyons said, boxes that are made to look like packages from a regular delivery services.

“We’ll put the package there, and see if it gets stolen, again in areas where we are getting reports of packages being stolen,” he said.

Even without the aid of the GPS devices, police are reporting instances of arrests related to attempted package theft.

A victim of an alleged doorstep package theft on the 1500 block of Colwood Drive on Monday reportedly followed the suspected thief to a hiding spot in a bush. The suspect, 27-year-old Santa Rosa resident Jamie Lamm, returned the package, and was allegedly found in possession of credit cards, mail and checks belonging to seven other victims when arrested six blocks away.

(Contact Eric Gneckow at eric.gneckow@arguscourier.com. On Twitter @Eric_Reports.)

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