Crime of the century!

Somebody, or a group of somebodies, stole eight – that’s right, eight – school buses from a Chicago area bus yard last night.

The people who stole the buses drove them to a scrapyard, where they were shredded.

“There was a pile of shredded school buses about two-stories high,” one police official said. Some pieces were large enough that police could see the “Sunrise bus logo,” the official said.
Engines and transmissions from the buses had already been cut in half, and the seats tossed in a “big pile of scrap.”

(The linked article includes some photos of the pile of scrap.)

Apparently, the buses were stolen sometime between 7 PM last night (when the yard was closed) and 5 AM this morning (when the theft was discovered). So are scrap yards typically open after 7 PM on a weeknight? And wouldn’t you figure that someone would ask questions when eight school buses were driven in for scrap? Or was there more going on?

When officers arrived, several people who apparently worked in the scrap yard ran into a building, police said. Officers initially apprehended one person and later took two others into custody. The owner was arrested in the afternoon.

(This could also double as important safety tip #18 17:

The buses were all equipped with GPS tracking devices, and police were able to track “their entire movement” to the scrap yard on the West Side, police said.

Don’t steal stuff with GPS tracking devices, or stuff that you might think has GPS tracking devices. Among the things that you might think have GPS tracking devices, if you’re a criminal mastermind:

  • Airplanes.
  • Expensive cars.
  • Government vehicles, including police cars.
  • School buses that carry children.

That’s just a partial list. I’m sure others can think of more examples, but those should suffice for the crackheads in my audience.)

This entry was posted on Friday, March 8th, 2013 at 3:56 pm and is filed under Clippings, GPS, Law, Safety. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

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