Pubdate: Fri, 30 Dec 2005
Source: National Post (Canada)
Copyright: 2005 Southam Inc.
Contact:  http://www.nationalpost.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/286
Author: Matthew Ramsey, CanWest News Service
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/find?241 (Methamphetamine - Canada)

'METH STOLE MY LIFE': REFORMED CAR THIEF

Video Catches High-Speed Chase: Fed Habit By Stealing 25-30 Vehicles 
A Day, Nabbed In Bait Vehicle

VANCOUVER - If you're looking for an auto theft poster boy, look no 
further than Darren.

At 23 years old, Darren, as he called himself in an interview with 
police this week, has been in and out of the court system for eight years.

"I stole my first one at Lougheed Mall [Burnaby, B.C.], right in 
front of everyone in the middle of the day. I thought that was pretty 
cool," he said, recalling that day when he was 17 years old. "I could 
get into it and have it going in 25 seconds flat. That was something 
I was proud of."

By then the slight young man had been addicted to crystal meth for 
two years. He was taught to steal cars by another addict who was 
running a meth lab.

Darren's addiction encouraged crime and the crime encouraged the 
addiction. Darren, who still doesn't have a driver's licence, 
estimates he stole as many as 1,000 vehicles and committed about 
double that number of break-ins.

"Crystal meth stole my life. It stole my relationship with myself," 
he said in a video shown to reporters yesterday. "I'm still 16. From 
16 to 23 has been stolen from me, completely. I was there, but I 
wasn't there. I was the walking dead ..."

The Integrated Municipal Provincial Auto Crime Team (IMPACT) produced 
the video to provide some insight into the mind of a "hard-core" auto 
thief, said Corporal Tim Shields.

"This story is not the exception. This is the norm," Cpl. Shields said.

The majority of repeat car thieves are addicts, average age 28, and 
use the car to commit other crimes. More than 40,000 vehicles were 
stolen in British Columbia last year alone.

Darren's starring role came courtesy of a "bait" car he stole just 
after 7:30 a.m., on July 1. Ironically, the first time he learned 
about bait cars was when he heard an advertisement on the radio of a 
van he'd stolen. He didn't pay the program much mind -- until July.

By the time he slipped behind the wheel, he'd been awake and high for 
more than eight days. Video shot by the dashboard camera shows Darren 
rejoicing, lighting a cigarette, noticing a police car behind him, 
seeing two more, then trying to escape.

He accelerates, hits something, reaches for his seat belt and accelerates more.

When the car's engine is shut down remotely, Darren steers the 
coasting vehicle on to a school field, opens the door and tries to 
run. The car glides into a fence.

He was sentenced to six months in jail, served five and was released 
in mid-December. He saw the black-and-white footage of himself only 
on Wednesday, when Cpl. Shields interviewed him for the video.

"Man, I look like a retard. Look at me. Look at the head on me, like 
a Winnipeg sugar beet.... I felt scared when I was watching it," he said.

Clean now for the first time in years, Darren said his primary 
motivation for stealing so many cars was a mix between necessity and 
the "rush" of accomplishment. He was, he said, a good thief.

"I could steal up to 25 or 30 a day. That's just during the day.... I 
always had a reason to go out and steal another car. I was never 
happy with what I had," he said. "I felt accomplishment when I stole 
a car. That was my thing."

He confessed to as many as 20 high-speed chases with police, even to 
ramming a stranger's car after he was caught scoping it out.

"I would probably kill somebody to get away.... It wouldn't have hit 
me until I was in jail for murder," he said. Looking back, running 
and putting others in danger is not something he was proud of, but 
his "buddies" always congratulated him.

Cpl. Shields said IMPACT may show judges the video in an effort to 
encourage longer sentences for repeat thieves. He and other police 
agencies are pushing for auto theft to be classified a violent crime, 
because of the destructive capability of a stolen car.
- ---
MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom