Council to Vote on Theft-Fighting Car Decals

A pilot program to deter car thefts, in which police could stop any vehicle with a special decal on its windshield during early morning hours, will be tested in the Van Nuys area if approved by the Los Angeles City Council.

The proposal is based on New York City’s Combat Auto Theft, or CAT, program, in which car owners sign waivers allowing police to stop their vehicles if spotted on streets between 1 a.m. and 5 a.m., a period when most auto thefts occur in that city.

The Los Angeles City Council is scheduled to vote Tuesday on the two-year, $12,000 program for the Van Nuys area, where nearly 400 cars are stolen each month.

New York authorities have praised the 3-year-old program, and a Los Angeles Police Department study concludes that a similar project here could deter car thefts and improve relations between police and the community. But the program probably would not lead to the capture of many car thieves, the report says.

Most car thefts in Los Angeles occur between 3 p.m. and 12:30 a.m., the report says, so the program’s chief impact probably would be as a deterrent. “It could cause a vehicle thief to bypass a vehicle with a CAT decal and move on to a vehicle without a CAT decal,” the report says.

“If it deters car thefts, or if we can snag some hot cars off the streets, then it is going to be a winner,” said Sgt. Bob Shallenberger, who will coordinate the pilot project if it is approved. “That’s why we want to test it.”

Police said the program would work as follows:

A car owner who wishes to participate would go to the department’s Van Nuys station and sign a consent form allowing police to stop the car if it is seen on the road between 1 a.m. and 5 a.m. After signing the form, the owner would receive a reflective windshield decal with an identifying serial number. The decal would alert officers to stop the vehicle if it is seen on the road during program hours.

A sample consent form in the Los Angeles proposal reads: “Should any law-enforcement officer observe my vehicle being operated between 1 a.m. and 5 a.m., they should reasonably suspect that the person operating my vehicle is doing so without my permission, and I hereby request that they stop my vehicle for further investigation.”

Police caution that car owners should only participate in the program if they do not normally drive their cars during the early morning hours.

“It is not for everybody,” said Officer Raymond Swieczkowski, program coordinator for the New York Police Department. “It is only for a certain segment of society.”

Los Angeles police designed the pilot project after it was proposed last year by Councilman Ernani Bernardi, who learned of the New York program while listening to a radio talk show.

When Bernardi made the proposal, police expressed concerns about the legality of allowing car owners to waive what, in effect, is their protection against unreasonable search and seizure, as guaranteed by the Fourth Amendment to the U. S. Constitution.

But the Los Angeles city attorney’s office said in a report on the program that no legal precedent was found prohibiting vehicle owners from granting police authorization to stop cars at specific times to determine if they are stolen.

Swieczkowski said that the legality of the New York program never has been challenged, and that the decal gives police probable cause to stop a vehicle.

Jon Davidson, an attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union in Los Angeles, said that because car owners voluntarily join the program, there is nothing unconstitutional about it. However, he said a challenge could arise if police stopped a car with a decal that was being lawfully driven by someone other than its owner.

“One person does not have a right to waive another person’s constitutional rights,” Davidson said.

If the City Council approves the program, it will start within two months, after the decals are printed and a public information campaign is staged in the Van Nuys area, police said.

The Van Nuys Division was chosen as the test area because it was the only one of 18 police divisions that ranked in the top four in both of two studies: the number of cars stolen last year--4,659--and in the percentage increase of car thefts between 1987 and 1988--25.2%. The division includes Van Nuys, Sherman Oaks, Panorama City and parts of Sepulveda and Encino.

Swieczkowski said New York’s program has been expanded from two Queens precincts in 1986 to 45 precincts--more than half of the city. He said 31,838 cars had been equipped with decals by June.

Since 1986, 52 cars in the program have been stolen. Swieczkowski called that figure extremely low and said it supports his department’s contention that the primary advantage of the system is to deter car thieves.

“If there is one car with one of these stickers and one without it, which one will a thief steal?” Swieczkowski asked.