Ingersoll Rand Cart Missing More Than A Year, Recovered in Riverside, CA
- June 11, 2012
- recovery stories
On April 24, 2012, the owners of a 2008 Ingersoll Rand Special Cart contacted the Indio Police Department to report that their equipment had been stolen more than a year earlier. Two other LoJack-equipped pieces of construction equipment were reported to the Indio Police at the same time.
After filing a theft report, the police had the cart’s information entered into the nationwide law enforcement crime database. This routine police action automatically activated the LoJack transponder concealed within the equipment, prompting the transponder to begin emitting a silent homing signal to patrol vehicles in the area equipped with LoJack Police Tracking Computers. Neither the owners nor law enforcement agents had to do anything else to activate the LoJack Vehicle Recovery Network, as LoJack’s interface with the police is both seamless and instantaneous.
Less than 40 minutes later, a California Highway Patrol Flight Officer flying Airplane 63, Indio Police, and Riverside Auto Theft Interdiction Detail (RAID) picked up the equipment’s LoJack homing signal. Following the directional signals on the tracking computers, the officers successfully tracked and located the stolen cart in the backyard of a residence in the 81000 block of Palmwood Avenue. A man and wife who reside there were questioned, and the husband stated that while he was working in Thousand Palms, he purchased the cart from a guy for $1100.00 on June 06, 2011. He produced a receipt from the seller, who told him that it belonged to his brother who owed him money. The police advised the man that the cart would be impounded, as it was stolen. RAID is conducting further investigation in this case.
The other two pieces of equipment were also tracked and recovered. Another special cart was recovered in the City of Palm Desert by the Riverside Sheriff’s Department with CHP Airplane 63 assisting. A light tower was recovered in the City of San Bernardino by San Bernardino Auto Theft Taskforce (SANCATT).
The LoJack Vehicle Recovery System was installed on the cart by Hertz Corporation in San Diego, CA in December 2007.