Car-phone calls put thief in cell
By Christine Tatum
Tribune staff reporter
Published June 3, 2002, 1:45 PM CDT
Chicago Web developer Eddie Kim found his stolen car within 24 hours, thanks to a little help from his friends -- and his wireless phone.
Kim double-parked Friday night in front of a friend's apartment on the 700 block of West Buena Avenue on the North Side. Fearing a ticket, he checked the street from an upstairs window. The car was missing.
Kim said Chicago police arrived less than five minutes after his call for help, but their patrol of the surrounding neighborhood turned up nothing.
Recalling that he had left his phone in the car, he dialed the number and offered the man who answered $100 if he would return the vehicle. The man promised to do so within 20 minutes but never appeared.
Acting on a hunch that the man would continue to use his phone, Kim turned for help to Matthew Carney, a friend who works as a sales representative for Sprint PCS in Traverse City, Mich.
Carney pulled up Kim's Sprint account to identify phone numbers dialed after the car was taken. Carney linked the phone to signals from Sprint towers in South Bend, Ind.
Kim used the Internet to look up addresses that matched the phone numbers Carney found. He said his most successful search was reversephonedirectory.com.
Armed with this information, Kim called South Bend police. "I don't think they believed me," he said.
Fearing that "nothing would get done if I didn't do it," Kim said he and a friend drove to South Bend Saturday to search the areas where Carney steered them.
"I just kept telling Eddie to promise me that if he saw his car he wouldn't confront anybody," Carney said.
Indeed, Kim said he saw his car parked at one of the addresses he'd found on the Web. He spotted a police car parked in front of a nearby house -- the home of a South Bend police officer.
The off-duty officer called for backup, but while the police were en route, Kim said he saw his car whiz down the street.
A high-speed chase involving more than a dozen officers ensued, South Bend police Capt. John Williams said. The driver hopped out of the car and tried to make a run for it but was stopped by a police dog.
Police charged Glen A. Bates, 18, of Chicago with felony auto theft and two misdemeanors: resisting law enforcement and giving false information.
The high-tech sleuthing taught South Bend officers more about the Internet's crime-busting capabilities -- and also bolstered the department's relatively new policy of encouraging officers to take their patrol cars home, Williams said.
"It's impressive that these people put so many pieces together," Williams said. "And then they found one of our cars sitting in a driveway and were able to report something right away. It's exactly the type of teamwork we've been hoping for."
Kim said his car had not been damaged -- and even had been cleaned thoroughly and filled with gas.
"I hope this doesn't happen again, but if it does, I won't cancel my cell phone account right away," he said.
Copyright © 2002, Chicago Tribune
chicagotribune.com |
