ST. LOUIS – A web of victims is connected through one stolen vehicle. The viewers have pieced together vehicles to identify the crime spree, but they can’t get action from St. Louis police because of low staffing.
Our FOX Files report Monday on a smash-and-grab suspect using a stolen truck led to the vehicle owner calling. “I said, ‘Well, damn, that’s my truck!” he said.
The truck owner asked not to be identified. He is certain that the suspect who was breaking windows of cars across the street on Sunday afternoon in south St. Louis was using his pickup. The victim said his pickup was stolen from The Grove.
“It’s been about three weeks,” he said. “…dealing with no information besides you giving me updates.”
Other FOX 2 viewers said they spotted the same truck and suspect committing crimes a day later off Hampton Avenue.
We showed the stolen truck victim the additional videos.
“Today, I said the same damn thing. That’s my (bleeping) truck – without a doubt,” he said.
Another video shows the suspect pull up and leave it on the side of the road, then get into a red Jeep Compass and drive away. A witness called the police when he saw the stolen truck abandoned. Neighbors are too spooked to talk about it on camera, but one of them told me he looked inside and saw a lot of goods inside, including a birthday gift.
You may remember Tammi Voracek’s nephew’s birthday gift being stolen Sunday and driven away in the stolen pickup.
“That it’s still sitting in the back of the truck—I mean, is he stupid? To keep the stuff in the back of the truck?” Voracek said.
The residents near Hampton said they called 911, hoping police would come get the stolen truck and stolen goods, but the suspect returned and drove off about five hours later, before police arrived.
“The officer was a little bit surprised that the guy just came to get the truck, and I said, ‘Yeah, you guys were a little late to apprehend this man,’” the witness said.
In another twist, a different police department found the red Jeep Compass Thursday morning. Florissant police reportedly arrested three suspects who were driving the Jeep, which was in bad shape. There were no further reported leads on the stolen pickup.
“We tried our best to get the police out here. The car was sitting for five hours. There’s not much more I can do,” the witness said.
We asked the St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department for staffing numbers from that Monday in question. A spokesperson responded that the 2nd District received 123 calls for service and that the day watch had seven beat cars, while the afternoon watch had five beat cars.
Joe Steiger, a spokesman for the St. Louis Police Officers Association, told us those numbers sound better than reality.
“It’s not uncommon to see three or four officers for an entire district. It seems to be kind of the norm here recently,” he said. “The districts are so big now, since they’ve reduced them from nine down to six that the area they’re covering is much larger, so to get from one area to another area is a significant amount of time; to get there, it is more dangerous for them.”
Meanwhile, Sunday’s smash-and-grab victims had to make police reports over the phone, and one of them says she is still waiting on a callback from an officer.