Washington Officers Recover Komatsu Excavator Stolen from Equipment Yard, Suspect IDd
- June 12, 2012
- recovery stories
A 2007 Komatsu PC50 excavator was stolen from the company’s equipment yard in Arlington sometime during the weekend of May 5-6, 2012. On May 7, the owner arrived to the equipment yard to find the lock and chain on the gate cut, and that the excavator had been off-loaded from an equipment truck and transported from the site on a different trailer. The owner immediately reported the theft to the Arlington Police Department.
Arlington Police prepared a theft report, and had the excavator’s information entered into the state and federal crime computer. This routine police action automatically activated the LoJack transponder concealed in the excavator, prompting it to begin emitting a silent homing signal. Neither the owner nor law enforcement had to do anything else to activate the LoJack Vehicle Recovery Network, as LoJack’s interface with the police is both seamless and instantaneous.
A short time later, officers with the Lake Stevens Police Department and a deputy with the Snohomish County Sheriff’s Office began to pick up the excavator’s homing signal on the LoJack Police Tracking Computer (PTC) installed in their patrol vehicles. Following the computer’s audio and visual cues, the officers located the excavator in a field adjacent to a property in the 15600 block of 23rd Street NE near Snohomish.
Police interviewed the occupants of the residence and identified a suspect. The investigation is continuing. The excavator was released to the owner who was very happy he protected his machine – worth $40,000-$50,000 – with a LoJack Vehicle Recovery System in June 2007.