Fresno Leads the West in Auto Thefts

The news that Fresno is the auto theft capital of the West and second in the nation only to Newark, N.J., came as no surprise to this city’s weary.

“We were third last year,” Sgt. Cordell Hemphill, head of the Fresno Police Department’s auto theft unit, said Thursday. “I guess we’re moving up in the world.”

Although the nation as a whole and some big cities such as Los Angeles and New York have seen a slight dip in car thefts, the stealing of cars has skyrocketed in Fresno and elsewhere in the San Joaquin Valley.

In Turlock, the theft rate doubled between 1990 and 1993, according to a study released Thursday by the National Insurance Crime Bureau. Visalia’s vehicle theft rate soared 72%; Modesto’s rose nearly 60% in the same period.

In Fresno, the theft rate in 1993 was nearly six times higher than the national average. San Bernardino and Sacramento were the only other California cities ranked among the 25 cities with the highest rates. Los Angeles, continuing a trend that began this decade, recorded nearly a 10% drop in vehicle thefts in 1993.

So why does Fresno, the hub of the farm-rich San Joaquin Valley, produce so many car thieves? One out of every three residents is on some form of public assistance, officials point out. Youth gangs, which police say account for more than half of the vehicle thefts, are growing. The city has sprawled rapidly and public services such as police and the juvenile courts cannot keep up.

But do not expect hand-wringing or a call to arms. Fresnans are chin-high in bad news. Every few months, it seems, another nationwide study ranks the city of 380,000 as the worst in this and the worst in that.

Last week, residents awoke to a front page headline that screamed: “Fresno arson rate highest in nation.” In 1994, 800 arson fires were recorded. Few of the crimes were solved because Fresno also happens to own the worst firefighter-to-citizen ratio of any big city in the country.

This week the news is auto theft, which connects to the fire problem because so many stolen cars are deliberately set ablaze, a crime that appears in official statistics as arson.

The number of vehicle thefts in Fresno in 1994 rose to 13,580. A decade ago, 1,760 vehicles were stolen. Hemphill has had to call on the same five detectives since 1989.

“We’re overwhelmed,” he said. “We average 70 to 80 arrests every month for auto theft. Juvenile offenders are our worst because the court treats them so leniently. They get a citation, and they’re right out the door.”

He recalled one youth who was pulled over in an Oldsmobile Cutlass, a favorite of car thieves. The youth was so nonchalant about his arrest that the officer wondered aloud how many vehicles the suspect had stolen in his short career.

“About 30,” the youth shot back. “This week.”