Driven Crazy : Crime: Car theft is on another upswing. For the detectives who track stolen autos--an overwhelming job in the best of times--the task is becoming truly Sisyphean.

Trying not to grin, Detective Lou Koven pulled a steering wheel from a stolen car out from under his desk, with one of those much-advertised anti-theft bars still attached--and still locked.

“They just popped off this wheel with the bar on it,” Koven said of the car thieves, “put their own wheel on and drove off.”

Koven and the other car-theft detectives at the Los Angeles Police Department’s Wilshire Division keep the supposedly theft-proof wheel around mostly as a source of amusement. But it also serves as a reminder: When car thieves are determined to steal a car, they almost always succeed.

Car theft on the Westside is on another upswing. For the police, it means that the task of the auto theft detective--an overwhelming job in the best of times--is becoming truly Sisyphean.

In Santa Monica and the unincorporated areas of Marina del Rey and the View Park/Windsor Hills area, authorities say the number of car thefts has jumped more than 20% so far this year compared to 1990.

In Los Angeles, hundreds of cars are stolen every month in each of the four LAPD divisions on the Westside, and each has reported an increase--most at a far greater rate than Los Angeles County overall, which has experienced about a 2% increase over last year, according to Sgt. Joe Palmer of the California Highway Patrol’s vehicle theft section.

Palmer says it should not come as a surprise that the Westside is fertile ground for car thieves.

“If you’re the thief,” he said, “you’d hang around the Marina, Beverly Hills and the Wilshire District, because that’s where you’d find the higher-class cars.”

So far this year, 1,596 cars have been stolen in Santa Monica, up from 1,322 cars at this time last year. “We’re losing them faster than we can count,” Officer Virginia Spring said. “We’re basically all overwhelmed, all of us (law enforcement agencies). Here, we’re definitely outgunned.”

Sheriff’s Detective John Vernon said car theft is the single worst problem facing authorities in Marina del Rey, where expensive cars are often parked in unsecured apartment garages.

“For a car thief,” Vernon said, “it’s heaven.”

Culver City’s car-theft rate has dropped 14%, and Malibu’s has stayed about the same, authorities said. In Beverly Hills, car theft has been rising steadily for the last three years, but remains “not really a major problem,” according to police spokesman Lt. Frank Salcido. In the first 10 months of 1991, there were 217 car thefts, up 8% from the year before.

But in the city of Los Angeles, police are particularly swamped, and nowhere more so than in Wilshire Division.

The division is a mostly affluent area, including the mansions of Hancock Park. It is generally bounded by La Cienega Boulevard on the west, Normandie Avenue on the east, the Santa Monica Freeway on the south and Beverly Boulevard on the north.

Wilshire usually ranks second in the entire city in the number of cars stolen, and is surpassed only by Rampart Division, directly to the east. But Rampart has seven detectives and one supervisor working auto theft, and Wilshire has had to make do with two or three.

It is up to the division’s handful of detectives to not only find the hot cars and solve the cases, but to try to cut down on the voracious appetite for stolen cars by busting the “chop shops” and parts dealers that pay good money for them.

Each month, as many as 550 cars are stolen in Wilshire, compared to about 300 a month just a few years ago, said Detective John Marzullo, head of the auto theft detail. In addition, he said, about 50 luxury cars are stolen at gunpoint each month, in which case the crime is classified as an armed robbery. About 500 more cars are broken into or vandalized.

In October, 564 cars were stolen, “most of them from right off the street,” Marzullo said. This year could be a division record: 5,355 cars already have been stolen, a 3.7% increase from last year.

In his office Monday morning, Marzullo tried to discuss car theft, but his phone lines kept lighting up. The results of another busy weekend for thieves were streaming in: Some cars stolen in Wilshire had been found in other parts of town, while reports of other cars stolen from within the division were coming in, as were as reports of captured suspects. Meanwhile, hot cars found in Wilshire had to be traced back to where they were stolen, so those police departments could begin working the cases.

With his meager staff, Marzullo said, it is just not possible to do the kind of legwork needed to solve cases.

“We can’t get out on the street and do what we used to,” Marzullo said. “We just don’t have the time.”

As a result, police just try to stay afloat in a sea of stolen cars. About 86% of the cars stolen in Wilshire are ultimately recovered, Marzullo said, but in many cases it is only after they have been stripped, sometimes all the way down to the frame.

And he said only about 12% of stolen car cases are solved, with suspects identified and cases filed.

There are several reasons why so many cars are being stolen from Wilshire, according to detectives.

For starters, there are the cars. Many young professionals live and work in the areas. They park their cars--late-model Japanese cars, in many cases, which are especially popular with thieves--on the street or in unsecured parking garages. Thieves can slip in and hot-wire them in a matter of seconds.

There also are vast parking lots, which thieves find easy places to work in. And there are some of the thousands of poor immigrants who hang around street corners looking for work. They need transportation, the detectives said, and they know that the chances of being caught or serving serious time for car theft are slim.

The results of a busy weekend of car stealing can be seen in the Police Department impound lot at Hank’s Wilshire Tow on West Washington Boulevard. On Monday morning, dozens of recently stripped vehicles were parked side by side and others were towed in literally every few minutes.

Some of the cars had been stolen for resale or for the thousands of dollars of parts and equipment they contain, while others were purloined for joy rides or insurance fraud.

For police, the toughest cases involve cars that are stolen and kept, because they are often repainted and given new license plates. And gang members increasingly are stealing cars to use in drive-by shootings and other crimes.

“There’s no rules when it comes to auto theft,” Koven said. “One kid told me he stole a car because he didn’t want to walk home in the rain.”

Every kind of car is a target, although Hondas, Toyota trucks and sedans, Nissans, and other high-end Japanese cars are especially popular. So are Oldsmobile Cutlasses and other large American cars favored by gang members for their roominess.

“Gang members love those Jeep Cherokees too,” said Koven, as he passed a couple of them in the impound yard. “They just go ape over them.”

The thieves’ methods vary. Some use force, jimmying doors open or punching out the locks, prying windows down or simply breaking them. Others prefer finesse, using thin metal wires known as “slim jims” or even skeleton keys. A few even use tow trucks and flatbed trucks, Detective Bill Sumpter said.

Once stolen, the cars can be stripped to the chassis in minutes, with the untraceable parts fetching thousands of dollars at the 50 or more chop shops that operate in the Wilshire area alone, Marzullo said.

Police have found some cars so devoid of interior parts that the thieves had to use cinder blocks as seats just to drive them a safe distance from the chop shop to be dumped.

It is nearly impossible for police to catch thieves in the act, detectives said. The good ones can do it in a matter of seconds. A good thief can quickly bypass even the most sophisticated security system, and know enough to find the spare key that people often leave in the car.

Once caught, many car thieves refuse to divulge their identity. And because police by law have only 48 hours to file charges once an arrest is made, many get away.

Some crime-fighting innovations have helped the police in their fight, most notably several homing devices that attach to cars. But those only help after the car is stolen, Marzullo said.

Marzullo said he wishes he could bust more chop shops to put a dent in the demand. But gathering the necessary evidence takes time, he said, “and we just don’t have the time to do that.”

So the detectives spend a lot of time poring over the stolen cars, looking for clues. On a recent trip to the impound lot, Marzullo noticed a totally stripped, formerly mint-condition Honda Prelude. The owner’s list of things to do for the week lay where the front seat used to be.

“This guy’s probably sick,” Marzullo said of the owner. “We show them their cars, a lot of people, and they break down, they’re so upset.”

Never at a loss for the silver lining, Marzullo noticed that the thief had not taken a big bottle of aspirin in the car. “That’s good,” he chuckled. “They’re gonna need that when they get their car back.”

Police Tips on Car-Theft Prevention

* Avoid buying cars that rank at the top of car thieves’ shopping lists, such as 1976-82 Toyota Corollas, 1978-84 Olds Cutlasses, 1977-85 Toyota Celicas, and all recent Toyota and Mazda pickup trucks.

* Use one or more anti-theft devices, and make sure they are plainly visible. Although such devices are not foolproof, sticks and clubs that immobilize steering wheels are generally effective deterrents. Wailing alarms are less effective, but they help.

* Use common sense in determining where to park your car. Use secure parking facilities whenever possible, or park your car in well-lit, public places, not behind stores, restaurants or movie theaters. Avoid leaving it in any unsecured area overnight.

* Never leave your car with the keys in the ignition in public, no matter how long you’ll be gone or how far you’re going.

* Always lock all car doors and shut all windows.

* Never leave a spare key anywhere under your car, or even hidden inside the car in the glove box, ashtray or elsewhere. Thieves with keys can claim the car was lent to them, and can use them to bypass some security measures.

* Don’t leave radios and other valuables in the car where they are visible. This can encourage a thief to break in and make taking the car seem more profitable.

* Consider investing in one of several homing devices that are available and used by participating police agencies. These allow authorities to track and recover your car once it is reported stolen.

* If your community has one, participate in a police-sponsored Auto Watch program, in which you give police permission to pull your car over during late-night hours when you wouldn’t normally be driving the car.

THE HOT SPOT

In the mostly affluent Wilshire Division, police are particularly swamped when it comes to stolen cars. The area, bounded by La Cienega Boulevard on the west, Normandie Avenue on the east, the Santa Monica Freeway on the south and Beverly Boulevard on the north, has as many as 550 cars stolen each month. In addition, police say, about 50 luxury cars are stolen at gunpoint, in which case it’s called armed robbery. About 500 more are broken into or vandalized.

THIEVES’ METHODS

Some use force, jimmying doors open or punching out the locks, prying windows down or simply breaking them. Others prefer finesse, using thin metal wires known as “slim jims” or even skeleton keys. A few even use tow trucks and flatbed trucks, police say. And it’s nearly impossible to catch thieves in the act, detectives say. The good ones can do it in a matter of seconds, quickly bypass even the most sophisticated security system.