Jay Steinmetz woke up Sunday morning to discover his Chevrolet Blazer was missing from the driveway of his Vancouver home.
His wife Tammie Steinmetz delivered the bad news.
“I looked outside, and it wasn’t there,” Jay Steinmetz said. That’s when he checked his home surveillance system and found footage of a car thief, which he turned over to Vancouver police the same day.
Jay Steinmetz said he thinks the thief took off with his only set of wheels shortly after he went to bed for the night, sometime between 1:30 and 2 a.m.
Around that time, a man came strolling down Northeast 49th Street, near Northeast 39th Avenue. He examines the SUV, looking around cautiously. At one point, the video shows the man hide behind the vehicle from a passer-by.
While crouching, he peers into the Steinmetzes’ carport, where the homeowner spends a fair amount of his time in a makeshift workshop, the video shows. The car thief entered the garage and returns into view holding some kind of stick, which he then uses to break into the Chevy, start it up and drive off.
The thief may have been after the vehicle’s stereo, the owner said. Jay Steinmetz had been working on the aftermarket system, and it was lying on the back seats of Chevy. He’s hoping that’s the case, because the man may have taken what he wanted and ditched the SUV somewhere.
This isn’t the first time Jay Steinmetz has had trouble with people coming onto and trying to steal his property.
There have been instances of backyard break-ins, and at least one other attempt to steal his Blazer. He said he caught that person in the act thanks to his surveillance system.
Sunday’s security video captured some good images of the thief, and Jay Steinmetz said sharing them increases the chances finding the culprit.
Simply put, he just wants his car back.
The theft has made life difficult for the married couple. Jay has frequent doctors’ appointments due to a permanent ailment, and he needs to drive Tammie to her new job in the mornings — she started about a week ago, he said.
For now, they’ve been borrowing a vehicle from a friend, but it’s a temporary solution.
“We need it back,” he said. “I want this guy to get caught, not because I want to beat him to death, but it just makes me mad that people do this to each other.”
