Police, volunteers help make 'massive dent' in Portland auto theft

PORTLAND, Ore. (KOIN) -- Hundreds of cars are stolen in Portland each month, but police are actively making a dent in those numbers.

Saturday night marked the 51st stolen vehicle operation involving Portland police, Multnomah County Sheriff's Office, Gresham Police and Port of Portland police.

They are working with the Multnomah County District Attorney's auto theft task force to not just find stolen cars and trucks, but get prosecutions as well.

The volunteer group PDX Stolen Cars also joined the operation, their 27th mission with law enforcement. According to founder Titan Crawford, these missions are making a difference.

"It's made a massive dent, because what we've been able to do with the auto theft task force is focus on the people that we see repeatedly committing the same crimes," he said. "And with that, they're able to speed up prosecutions, evidence collection."

Crawford told KOIN 6 News he is aware of four arrests so far. He also helped in recovering three of the nine cars found Saturday night.

One of the arrests was near Northeast Glisan Street and 103rd Avenue, when a driver in a stolen vehicle attempted to run from police on foot. However, he was soon taken into custody.

According to PPB's data dashboard on motor vehicle arrests, there have been 372 arrested for theft from Jan. 2024 through the end of August. This is a significant decrease from the same time last year, when there were 640 arrests.

KOIN 6 News reached out to the PPB for further updates on the arrests and recovered cars from the latest mission and are waiting on a response.