Mini Cooper Stolen from Parking Lot with Engine Running, Recovered by Miami Gardens Police
- August 28, 2012
- recovery stories
According to sources, on Sunday morning, July 1, 2012, the owners of a 2009 Mini Cooper Clubman 2-door coupe contacted the Miami Gardens Police Department to report that their vehicle was stolen from the 18800 block of N.W. 2nd Avenue in Miami Gardens. The victim stated that he parked his car in a store parking lot with the doors unlocked and engine running, and went inside to do some shopping. A few minutes later, he saw his vehicle moving; he ran outside and observed a suspect driving away in his vehicle. The suspect made a right turn onto N.W. 189th Street and sped away.
Miami Gardens officers verified the theft and had the Mini Cooper’s information entered into the state and federal crime computers, which automatically activated the LoJack transponder concealed in the vehicle.
A short while later, an officer with the Miami Gardens Police Department picked up the silent LoJack homing signal from the stolen Mini Cooper on their on-board LoJack Police Tracking computer (PTC). Following the directional and audible cues on their PTCs, the officer, along with backup, located the vehicle outside of a residence in the 700 block of N.W. 200th Street.
There, they observed a subject exiting the residence. The officer made contact with the owner of the Mini Cooper, who responded to the scene to see if they could identify the subject that the officers were interviewing. The owner could not identify the subject as the one behind the wheel of his car as it drove off. The vehicle was recovered, released to the owner, and removed from federal and state crime computer systems.
The LoJack Vehicle Recovery System was installed in the Mini Cooper Clubman on April 25, 2009 at Braman Mini in West Palm Beach, Florida.