Sitting in his idling patrol car on the shoulder of the onramp from Mill Plain Boulevard to Interstate 205, Trooper Steve Schatzel waited as the computer in his car beeped.
Cameras on the roof of Schatzel’s car captured photos, including license plate information, of each car in the line of Tuesday morning commuters heading south. Every minute or so, his computer squawked and the screen turned red.
“All right, we’ve got a little gray Mazda behind a red sedan coming up,” Schatzel said into his radio. In doing so, he alerted the troopers ahead of him of the car on his “hot list” — a list of vehicles that are registered out-of-state to drivers who appear to live in Washington.
Schatzel heads the Washington State Patrol’s License Investigation Unit, which targets these drivers who are evading the law.
Drivers who move to Washington must register their car within 30 days of moving, Schatzel said. Some businesses allow employees to take a company vehicle home across state lines for the night, but must pay taxes for them to do so.
Schatzel said he also sees people who avoid taxes by buying a vehicle in Oregon and registering it to a family member or friend in Oregon to avoid paying sales tax.
“That would be fraud,” he said. Employees from the state Department of Revenue also participated in the sting so they could follow up with drivers who potentially owe taxes.
“People don’t really understand how big this problem really is,” Schatzel said. “Currently, I’m tracking about 15,000 cars” in the Clark County area.
Of those, Schatzel has sufficient probable cause to stop 3,445 vehicles.
Vehicle registration is not only important for tax purposes, but also to keep good records in case the vehicle is involved in a hit-and-run or another crime, Schatzel said.
Along with following up on complaints from citizens, Schatzel drives through neighborhoods and apartment complexes and even stakes out schools to develop probable cause to make a stop. All the while, the camera on his car collects information from the vehicles around him, documenting license plates, location and time.
“We document everything. … Do you take the same route to work every day? Most people do,” Schatzel said. “If we keep seeing the same car in the same location at the same time of day … I think they live here.”
The information goes into a computer system — one that Schatzel developed — and the software tells him how many times the vehicle has been spotted and alerts him when there is reasonable suspicion to stop the vehicle.
“Then I can chase them down and have a conversation with them,” he said.
Schatzel, along with a few volunteers in his unit, also finds and compares the names and addresses on driver’s licenses, voter registration, property records and utility information. He pieces the information together to see if the driver has the vehicle registered to their home address.
When he finds inconsistencies, Schatzel mails the vehicle owner a postcard or leaves a warning on the windshield.
“It’s education,” he said. “Mostly, we would like people to voluntarily comply.”
But every so often, Schatzel organizes an enforcement effort to stop the people who are evading the law.
Schatzel said it’s difficult to pinpoint exactly how much money the state loses to out-of-state vehicle registration. Sometimes, Schatzel said, people will keep their Oregon driver’s license even though they live in Washington so they can shop tax-free.
“There’s no way to really track how much we’re losing,” he said. “One of the biggest ticket items that Washingtonians have is their cars. That’s why it’s so important.”
On Tuesday morning, the group of troopers stopped and spoke with drivers suspected of playing the system. WSP Trooper Steve Robley stopped one vehicle whose driver told him that she has an apartment in Vancouver, but that she lives with her aunt in Portland.
“She lives here,” Robley said with a deadpan tone.
After handing her a ticket totaling about $1,300, Robley returned to his patrol car saying the woman wasn’t happy.
“I pay my taxes, so should everybody else,” he said.
By the end of the hourlong sting, troopers had stopped 31 cars and written eight citations. Schatzel pointed out that many more cars on his hot list had passed by him and were not stopped because troopers were too busy with other drivers.
“We came out today in force, but I’m out here all the time,” he said. “I could be back tomorrow.”
