Sophomore art major Karen Bridges had just gotten off the bus last Wednesday and was walking to her University Commons apartment when she noticed her 1988 Toyota Camry was nowhere in sight.
“I was just thinking about changing the tags, but then when I noticed it was gone, I knew it had been stolen,” she said.
Her car had just been stolen for the second time in four months.
“I thought, ‘Oh no, not again,’” she said. “It was pretty disappointing and frustrating.”
Many other students have experienced the same frustration as Bridges. Car thefts in Eugene increased by 66 percent from November 2004 to November 2005 and are especially prevalent in the campus area, Eugene Police Department Detective Dennis Doe said.
Sophomore physics major Ian Kelly-Morgan discovered his 1996 Jeep Cherokee was stolen in September after returning to his University Commons apartment at the end of a long Saturday night. He said he thought it had been towed and called several towing companies before contacting police.
“It was really not something I wanted to deal with that weekend,” Kelly-Morgan said.
Doe, the only detective in charge of investigating auto theft in Eugene, has witnessed the recent explosion in car theft and is urging students to help by watching out for their neighbors’ cars.
“What would be very helpful is if the public would be more attentive to the cars parked around their living spaces and watch out for each other,” Doe said.

EPD Officer Randy Ellis said seven cars have been stolen in the last seven days.
Doe and Ellis both said that Toyotas, Hondas and Nissans made between the mid-80s and early 90s are the most common type of cars stolen and that students should be even more careful if they have one.
“Those three are the easiest kinds of cars to break into because many of them can be started by any worn down key,” Ellis said, “Thieves just have to jiggle the key around a bit to get the car started.”
One positive, Doe said, is Eugene has an unusually high recovery rate on stolen cars, about 90 percent. Police recovered both Kelly-Morgan’s and Bridges’ vehicles.
Kelly-Morgan’s vehicle was found in a Chase Village parking space a week after it was stolen. He said his entire stereo system had been ripped out of the dashboard.
The first time Bridges’ car was stolen, thieves took her speakers, CD player and all of her CDs before abandoning the car in the Springfield Fred Meyer parking lot.

“The second time my car was stolen, they drove my car until it was out of gas and left it in front of a house in Springfield,” Bridges said.
This time, her floor mat, an extra quart of oil and her spare tire were all taken.
“The car was trashed too,” she said. “There was dirt everywhere and even old Top Ramen all over the place.”
Both Ellis and Doe said the main culprits are drug addicts who don’t have their own method of transportation or need to sell stolen goods.
“Some people steal cars just for the fun of it, too,” Doe said. “They go out with their buddies on a night and see how many cars they can steal.”
One important thing students with cars can do to help prevent these crimes is to get to know their neighborhood and figure out whose car is whose, Doe said.
“If people ever go outside, they should just take a look around at all the cars in the area and make sure everything is OK,” Doe said. “It makes it easier if people know which car belongs to which person.”
 

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