One of 3 Pieces of Stolen Construction Equipment Missing More Than a Year, Recovered in Palm Desert
- June 11, 2012
- recovery stories
On April 24, 2012, the owners of a 2006 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 30 minutes later, a California Highway Patrol Flight Officer flying Airplane 63 and ground units from Riverside Sheriff’s Palm Desert 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 at a residence in the Palm Desert area. It was recovered and returned to the owners.
The other two pieces of equipment were also tracked and recovered. Another special cart was recovered in the City of Indio by Riverside Auto Theft Interdiction Detail (RAID), 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 August 2009.