NY/NJ Cops Fight Car Thieves With Forced Traffic Jams, GPS Darts And More High-Tech Tricks

  • New York and New Jersey police are willing to use various tactics to find and secure stolen vehicles.
  • They include GPS tracking darts, Apple AirTags, intentional traffic jams, and more.
  • However, whether all these tactics are working or not requires additional data.

Combating auto theft is a tricky problem but police in New York and New Jersey believe they’ve stumbled upon some helpful aids. Across the region, they’re trying everything from GPS tracking darts to intentional traffic jams to catch thieves. The tactics appear primed to drastically reduce the need for dangerous high-speed pursuits.

Police chases can be deadly. That’s the case not only for the fleeing suspect but for the officers and sometimes innocent bystanders too. At the same time, auto theft is a major issue across the nation. So how do authorities balance the need to hold criminals accountable while also doing what they can to reduce potential risk? In New York and New Jersey, it’s all about using various tactics.

One seemingly low-tech method is called a “mitigation plan” and it involves creating a traffic jam. “The idea,” said NYPD Assistant Chief Joseph Gulotta, the commanding officer on Staten Island, “is to get that traffic slowed down enough so we can get the car we’re looking for stuck in traffic. What the mitigation plan calls for is closing down the bridges, shutting down parts of the highway, and then slowing that traffic down so there’s no place for the cars to go,” he said.

More: Car Theft In Canada Is So Bad That The Government Is Calling A National Summit

In addition, at least two departments in New York are using something called the Starchase system. It includes a GPS dart that officers can fire from a hand-held device or directly from the front of their cruiser during a police chase. The darts fire at up to 30 mph and use a heat-activated glue to stick to the stolen vehicle in question.

For one officer using the Starchase system, it’s all about limiting risk to the public. “Police pursuits are very much discouraged,” said Old Westbury Police Department Chief Stuart Cameron. “The statistics just speak for themselves… suspects are getting hurt, officers are getting hurt, and even members of the public are getting killed and injured in these pursuits.”

In other cases, passive technology can come to the rescue. New York City distributed free Apple AirTags to Kia and Hyundai owners in an effort to help them track down cars that could be stolen. The region also uses automatic license plate readers that can alert an officer to a stolen vehicle. “Instead of taking days to track down suspect vehicles, we can [now] probably have a suspect vehicle in an hour or less,” Secaucus Police Chief Dennis Miller told Gothamist.

More: Hyundai And Kia Thefts Have Reportedly Skyrocketed More Than 1,000%

These tactics don’t mean that all of the older ways of stopping a suspect are gone though. Departments still regularly use stop sticks to pop vehicle tires and the old adage of “you can’t outrun the radio” holds true too. Now, that “radio” is just a bit more sophisticated. Officers in New Jersey actually have an app to collaborate and track stolen vehicles in real time.

At this stage in the game, many of the tactics are too new to say just how effective they are at curtailing thefts or increasing safety. Regardless, it’s interesting to see how authorities are adapting to the challenges they face.

Image Credit: Apple / NYSThruway / Starchase


The Auto World

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