Since January, a team of two detectives and a sergeant at Vancouver Police Department have been re-establishing the defunct property crime unit, and early accomplishments include preparing cases for prosecution at the federal level.
“It’s kind of like drinking from an open fire hose right now,” said Major Crimes Unit Lt. Troy Price, who oversees the new team. “All of the sudden, patrol officers have a place for (property theft) cases to go. … So, we’re already running into some of these more complex cases. We’re having pretty good success in what’s getting done.”
Property crimes consist of various things. They can be vastly different from offense to offense, or from victim to victim. In general, property crime means theft, vehicle theft, burglary and vandalism, as well as different types of fraud.
One recent case involves a string of burglaries at Mexican restaurants along the Interstate 5 corridor. Burglars pried open a door and stole several thousand dollars in cash from Muchas Gracias in Vancouver on Dec. 15. The detectives compared similar burglaries and concluded that multiple incidents involving businesses along I-5 and in the Portland metropolitan area are likely part of a series of burglaries.
The detectives are reconnecting with financial institutions and local retailers and merchants. Those relationships are needed to gain a clearer picture of what issues, trends and organized efforts exist in relation to criminals committing property crimes throughout Vancouver.
“Once we get all of those identified, we’ll start developing a more strategic approach to disrupting and dismantling those efforts and arresting people to prosecute for those crimes,” Price said.
The previous property crime unit was disbanded during the Great Recession in July 2008, said police department spokeswoman Kim Kapp. That unit consisted of a sergeant and six detectives, Kapp said.
During the economic crunch, the number of officers was reduced under the direction of Cliff Cook, the former police chief. When he came into the position, the city was comfortable financially, and Cook planned to grow the police department. That’s when the recession hit.
To maintain the backbone of its services, the police department prioritized keeping as many patrol officers as possible, Price said. It dissolved the property crimes unit.
Looking back, the move made sense, Price said.
“When you look at how the community prioritizes crime, people are upset when their car gets stolen, but they’re outraged when people get killed or seriously hurt,” he said.
In the unit’s absence, the police department’s Neighborhood Response Teams picked up some of the slack. The teams work on a spectrum of crimes but focused on chronic problems in neighborhoods, Price said. They did not perform long, protracted property crime investigations.
The unit’s absence was apparent to professionals and locals.
The International City/Council Management Association released a report in March 2013 analyzing the police department’s operations. The department had commissioned the nonprofit’s investigation.
Among the report’s findings, the nonprofit said the police department needed to “embrace a process of case management and vigorous investigation of property crimes.” The department had devolved into so many specialized units that the capacity to investigate those crimes no longer existed, the report said.
Three years later, a police department survey carried out by another independent institution found property crimes actually topped the lists of locals’ concerns. Sixty-four percent of respondents said property crime concerned them most. Violent crime came in second at 53 percent.
According to the latest data collected by the FBI, Vancouver’s property crime rate declined 3 percent from 2015 to 2016. But the Uniform Crime Report has a tendency to undercount crimes. The FBI’s property crime tracking for the report is limited to incidents of burglary, larceny or theft, and motor vehicle theft. And the data only includes the most serious crime in a given incident.
After a nearly decade-long absence, the police department is getting the unit back up and running.
Price said the plan has always been to get the property crime unit back in place. The ability to make that happen relied on staffing and the right people to do the job, he said.
In February 2017, the Vancouver City Council approved a new funding strategy for the police department that will add 61 sworn and civilian positions by 2020.
The council said the money for the department comes from new revenue sources, a federal grant and marijuana sales tax revenue, among other sources.
The staffing plan calls for the unit to add two more detectives in the same time frame.
