Sacramento Police Ground and Air Units Recover Honda FIT Stolen by Armed Hitchhiker with Help from the LoJack® System
- May 22, 2013
- recovery stories
We have all been warned not to pick up hitchhikers- by our parents, by law enforcement-but the owner of this Honda FIT didn’t get the message and ended up with a passenger carrying a gun.
On May 19th, 2013, the victim contacted Sacramento Police. He had picked up a hitchhiker earlier that day that turned out to have a gun in his waistband. The hitchhiker demanded the driver to take him to a certain location. The driver said he needed to stop for gas, and when he left the car to pay, the suspect took off in the FIT.
Police entered the vehicle information into the California Stolen Vehicle System as well as the national system. This routine police action automatically activated the LoJack unit concealed in the FIT, which was installed at Mel Rapton Honda in Sacramento, CA.
A short time later, a Sacramento Police Helicopter unit got the homing signal from the Honda on its on-board LoJack tracking computer. The helicopter officers requested assistance from ground units who located the FIT being driven in south Sacramento. The suspect was stopped by police and fled on foot, but was quickly captured and arrested. He was later found to have had several prior arrests for auto theft. The Honda was soon returned to its owner.
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