The Grayson County Sheriff’s Office is encouraging residents to be “vigilant and alert” as a coordinated ring of car thieves appear to be making their way to the county.
At Thursday’s Grayson County Fiscal Court meeting, Sheriff Norman Chaffins said he received a call from Kentucky State Police warning the sheriff of a rash of stolen vehicles in surrounding counties.
“Every county surrounding us, east of us, Jefferson County, Bullitt County, Hardin County, I think Hart and maybe LaRue County, have had a rash of stolen cars. And they (the perpetrators) are starting to move west. It’s just a matter of time before they come into this area,” Chaffins said.
The perpetrators, who have been armed, the sheriff said, are simply “showing up in people’s driveways and stealing cars.”
The theft ring, which is a group of young people, possibly teenagers, is targeting vehicles with keys inside.
“A lot of the cars being stolen have the keys in them. So we certainly want to encourage people to take the keys from your vehicles; they aren’t targeting specific cars.”
Troopers have come close to making arrests, as they have been involved in at least two pursuits that were terminated for the public’s safety after the thieves turned off the stolen vehicle’s lights as they were being chased by police.
“KSP has been in pursuit a couple of times (but) the suspect go into black-out mode at nighttime and they’ve had to terminate pursuits a couple of times,” according to Chaffins.
“We just want to make sure everybody is vigilant and alert for any suspicious vehicles,” Chaffins emphasized. “There’s multiple people involved: They’ll park a car and then have one (perpetrator) go down the street … they travel in twos, they’ll have one stolen car block police and let the other stolen car away and then they black-out and they leave.”
By Ken Howlett, News Director
Contact Ken at ken@k105.com
