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I think the base assumption is that the officers are somehow being paid to ignore the car theft.

If McDonough is reading this thread and is incensed that I once again am assuming that the Jersey City officers are massively paid off: prove I'm wrong by having the officers show that they care about stolen cars.

If the officers act THIS nonchalant, or, really, even hostile toward people who have actually gone out and found their own stolen cars, it's just very hard to believe that there's anything even a little bit honest or competent about the JCPD.

If the members of the JCPD want us to take them seriously as a force for good and not view them as just another street gang, then they have to shape up.

That's a good one about the Lojack people being amazed that they wouldn't track it, you officially have me beat. For me, coming up against that nonchalant attitude was as much of a drag as actually getting the car stolen was.

People who haven't had to go through it yet wouldn't know, so as a public service:

As far as your car goes, you are on your own in Jersey City - the system seems to have given up on stressing over car theft some time ago.

Maybe they've had to prioritize on drugs and violent crime, I can understand that. But for car theft it's like the wild wild west here, anything goes. At least that was my experience.

I don't commute by car so now I'm thinking of going with Zipcar, because I don't want to either own a total beater or have to wonder each morning if my car's still going to be there.

So one more parking space for the rest of you.

Just a helpful reminder but if you find your car not the police, be sure to follow up with the cops and make sure your car is no longer listed as stolen. A friend of mine was approached by state police with guns drawn when his car was not properly removed from stolen car list.

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Well if we're starting a whole rant here - Not only did the cops not find the car - but we had a Lojack on the car. When we told the East District cops (7th street) they said "We don't have Lojack locators in our new squad cars - you'll have to call the state police". When I asked if they had any OLD cars with the locators they said "yeah over in the parking lot" but they wouldn't send anyone out to just turn the thing on to see if our car was in the area. When I called Lojack the representative almost had a coronary when I told him all this.

Mark again.

our friends had the same thing happen... the car was stolen from hamilton park, and then found a week later, around the corner from the police station, covered in tickets. and it was not found by the cops... the friends found it.

about five years ago...Had my car stolen - reported it- they found it five days later with tickets. Paid the $165 to get it out of the impound lot, paid the report fee and cleared the tickets.

had my car for another three days or so and it got stolen again. this time I cancelled my ins and decided to write the car off in my mind.

A month later they say it's been recovered agian - with tickets. I go to the impound lot and decide I don't want the thing anymore (89 jetta book value was prob $1000) So its a $140 fee to sign it over to the state. If I don't do that then it's considered abondonaning a vehichle and I was told a warrent would be issued for my arrest after a certain perioud of time.

If I wanted to take it, I would have had to get a tow truck... I couldn't drive it away because I didn't have current insurance.

yeah, that was a bad month.
I'm amazed I still live in this town, it's so backwards.

Scooter, same thing happened to me, EXCEPT not only did it have five tickets on it, the people who stole it were involved in a hit and run, so I HAD to go to court to show the judge my copy of the theft report. Oh, and did I mention that I recoverd the car MYSELF? The week after it was stolen, I drove in ever-larger circles around my hood in another car, and finally found it.

So, just to keep score:

(1) Car was stolen.
(2) Thieves involved in hit and run a couple days later. Even though witnesses were able to get entire plate number, and even though car was reported stolen days earlier, I still got a summons in the mail ordering me to report to court for hit and run.
(3) Thieves, running low on gas, finally parked the car ten blocks from my house, where it got five parking tickets.

A stolen car that was involved in a hit and run repeatedly getting ticketed by an arm of city government---WHAT IS WRONG WITH THIS PICTURE?

I guess we live in Jersey City. We can't have nice things, like an information system that doesn't additionally penalize innocent people when life throws a curve. Really, how hard would it be to have some sort of system that informed JC residents that their stolen car is out and about? Or at least informed city agencies about the status of cars?

geeze, it is amazing how common this story has become.

my roommate's car was stolen last year as well, he reported it of course, but didn't hear from anyone for over a month. he was just days away from purchasing a new car when he finally got a phone call from the cops saying, "yeah, we found your car."

it had a pile of tickets on the windshield, and was sitting about a half mile from our apartment.

Nothing funny about that....
Zip car. $55 a day INCLUDES insurance and gas and you don't have to park it - just return it. I gave my car away a year ago and don't miss it at all.

Damn, I would be livid right now.

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The last time our car was stolen it was parked illegally and towed, then sat in the impound for 3 days before the police told us it was there. We were charged $90 (total or per day I forget which) to get it out of the impound lot...

Mark.

Yeah... on the phone they told me there was a form they would send me, but instead they just sent a notice to go before the judge.

When I called back to ask about why they weren't sending me the form, they said really it's just better I come in before the judge, because the mailed forms are handled by a different judge, it's a slower process, the ticket might not get cleared correctly, things tend to go wrong, etc etc. They just really were pushing hard talking me out of doing it by mail.

I don't know if the person was trying to give me good advice or was just pushing me towards coming in because it was less work for them, but at that point I took their word for it as far as things going wrong, and I went before the judge to get it cleared up.

Scooter - Have you spoken with anyone at the court yet?

I had the same thing happen about 7 years ago - my car was stolen in JC and never found. Then over a month later I got a notice of failure to pay a parking ticket that was issued the same day in another part of the city. I called the phone number on the ticket and mailed a copy of the police report to have the ticket cancelled.

It was simple and the office was very helpful.

Dude, that sucks!

I don't have a story that comes close to that, but i can relate to the "Jersey City parking systems don't 'talk' to one another". I live on essex st. which has residents only parking and yet i've gotten like 4 tickets in the last 2 years despite the fact that we had to register the car with the parking authority. you would think that once they typed a license plate # into their ticket machine it would say, "oh wait, i recognize this license plate..."

I mean that is of course after they ignore the multiple stickers on the back of your car....

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Judges have been forced to resign for less than that. Parking tickets are sacrosanct in this town.

That is funny.

I would at least expect the city to say: "We found your car due to parking tickets it has been receiving. Since we know it was stolen, we are not going to charge you."

I would guess that would never happen.

Is it a few days later when you need a copy of the police report for your insurance and you discover the city has decided this is an excellent opportunity to make another $5 off you, the crime victim, by *charging* you for the copy?

No.

Is it when, since you don?t happen to know the report number, you find out that the additional effort of looking it by your last name costs an *additional* $5?

No.


It doesn't come until about a month later, when you get a notice from the Municipal Court and find out that your car was indeed found in Bergen-Lafayette 5 days after it was stolen! Yay!

?.and ticketed for a street cleaning violation.

Oh, it wasn?t recovered, of course - the Parking Authority, which does nothing but drive around looking at cars and license plates all day, has no connection whatsoever to the database of stolen cars, even after a ticket goes all the way through their system and on into the Municipal Court system for non-payment. So instead of having your car recovered, you now owe the city $42 plus a $10 late fee or you can plead not guilty ? which means an hour or two at Municipal Court going before a judge and getting the thieves? parking ticket taken off your record...



You might think the thieves would have to be pretty stupid to let a car get a parking ticket 5 days after stealing it ? but it?s like that old joke ?I don?t have to run faster than the tiger, I just have to run faster than you? ? the thieves don?t have to be smart, they just have to be smarter than the city.




ah well.

?Forget it Jake, it?s Chinatown?