Stolen Gear at Red Rocks!!

Robert Hall wrote:

Robert Hall wrote:

Hopefully, no wallet was in the car...but if by chance there was one and it was still there check ALL credit cards, sometimes they just take one card so you don't notice and have more time to run up the bills. 

Another theft approach is to leave all the credit cards in the wallet - but they write down the name, number, expiration, and CCV and use it on-line.

Pix Pix wrote:

Did you end up finding out who took it? Were you able to track him down at all? 

We did find out his name and got video footage of him trying to use one of the stolen credit cards. His name is Steven Johnson and we think he lives in Pahrump. Still waiting for the police to do anything about it. We got all that information by ourselves.

MKGreen wrote:

Sorry to hear about that - it truly sucks. My car was broken into 10 years ago exactly where you parked and the SOB who broke into it made off with a lot of goodies. I had everything in the trunk of a rental car. The thief smashed the window and popped the interior trunk handle. Thieves can probably also access a trunk by folding down the back seat. My personal car has a locking interior trunk lever and the seats can’t be folded down from the inside. I’m fairly certain I was being watched and sounds like that was the case in this incident too. 

The cops barely gave a crap in my case, but it was through credit card records that they were able to catch the guy since my wallet was stolen and the dummy used one of my cards to pay off his balance at a storage unit registered to him. The cops were too lazy to check out the storage unit (which was probably full of stolen goods) since it was in North Las Vegas which is a different jurisdiction. At least the thief was caught and incarcerated as he had several robbery charges against him beyond my case.

Now that I live in Vegas I only park outside of the loop (which I usually avoid doing) when I have absolutely nothing in my car and I take my hatchback so potential thieves don’t even have to consider smashing a window to check out the trunk. Sometimes having a car full of stuff is hard to avoid for those visiting from out of town, but if you do, then parking inside the loop road is a much safer bet. There have also been break-ins at Black Velvet - sounds like vans were being targeted.

Good tips, thank you, did you end up getting your stuff back from the guy or getting money from the guy?

Brian,

Sorry for your loss man that sucks really bad.  Something I've done to prevent this is get one of those U shaped bike locks and then put your cams/nuts on it so that they would have to cut the lock or cam cable to get them off. I then use a cable lock to secure it to a place inside the car.   I know if someone was really trying it wouldn't stop them but I figure people that are doing this sort of thing are out for a smash and grab. I do this if I'm ever going to leave gear in the car at a trail head or parking area I lock up all my expensive gear on the U Lock and have not had gear stolen (even with my back window already being broken out from a keys locked in the car at a trail head situation.) Good luck on getting your stuff back. 

Brian Johnson wrote:

Good tips, thank you, did you end up getting your stuff back from the guy or getting money from the guy?

Nope :(  The the detective assigned to my case was on vacation for two weeks and LVPD did not assign someone else in the meantime.  By the time she was back, the video evidence where the cards were used had been overwritten so the only hard evidence was at the storage facility in North Las Vegas.  Since the police didn't want to deal with another jurisdiction and they had hard evidence on the perp for other cases they didn't pursue mine so I didn't get anything back.  I was beyond frustrated with the LVPD.  I also did the job of detective and I made the call to the storage unit where they found the record of payment and the corresponding storage unit, but understandably they wouldn't share his name with me but were willing to cooperate with the police.  I filed a claim with my homeowner's insurance (which subsequently went up prompting me to change carriers) and my credit card (begrudgingly) paid for the damage to the rental car.

Glad to hear that you found the guy in your case - these guys usually aren't the brightest (which is why they have to resort to stealing) so they usually get caught.  I hope you are able to get everything back.  If they can arrest him soon then there might be hope since he probably hasn't been able to sell anything yet.  Even though the thieves were caught in both cases it is an awful feeling of being violated not to mention the inconvenience it causes.

I'm not aware of break-in issues inside the loop road (although others can chime in if they know otherwise) so a car full of visible stuff should be reasonably safe there but still worth exercising caution.  I now go so far as to lock cams that I don't use that day in my glovebox - even if I'm parked in the loop road.

Vegas posting. Looks shady as hell. X4's C4's in a pile on someone's lap while driving??

https://us.letgo.com/en/i/black-diamond-camalot-cams_cbe42e65-95cb-40c6-b190-3bc9568a661d

^^^You may be right, that looks like a winner

The OP didn’t mention having Metolius cams but the seller certainly doesn’t sound like a climber. No climber would describe a rack as all sizes, call them all “camalot cams” and no mention of racking biners. And take a photo like that. Working checking into. 

With a name like Edward Henderson, it sounds legit.

guys got other groups of climbing gear for sale too

Kyle Berthiaume wrote:

Vegas posting. Looks shady as hell. X4's C4's in a pile on someone's lap while driving??

https://us.letgo.com/en/i/black-diamond-camalot-cams_cbe42e65-95cb-40c6-b190-3bc9568a661d

He's got tattoo equipment and watches for sale, too. Seems like a real stand-up Vegas citizen.

Kyle Berthiaume wrote:

Vegas posting. Looks shady as hell. X4's C4's in a pile on someone's lap while driving??

https://us.letgo.com/en/i/black-diamond-camalot-cams_cbe42e65-95cb-40c6-b190-3bc9568a661d

Wow I really thought that was my gear at first but I didn't have that metolius cam. 

That post looks super sketchy though. We did find out the guys name who stole out gear is Steven Johnson. He is from Pahrump, NV and we have a video of him using our stolen card. https://drive.google.com/open?id=1K_LTn8AXvk_If0Ki7N-UChCTZW1YeTtL The police still are not able to do anything because we dont have a birthday for him and dont have any other info on him....

Did your gear have blue tape?  

I inquired about his add. Here is the interaction. He certainly doesn’t climb. 

I didn't have blue tape on mine. Yeah...."gas" money...okay

This looks like your guy, already in custody on a bunch of charges.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TYa06V-o-wo

https://www.pahrumpjusticecourt.com/calendara.pdf

Looks like he's being arraigned tomorrow. Maybe (and hopefully?) the prosecutor would be more interested in your video and story than the police were?

stephen johnson sounds a lot like john smith to me

Josh Janes wrote:

Looks like he's being arraigned tomorrow. Maybe (and hopefully?) the prosecutor would be more interested in your video and story than the police were?

Those prosecutors are unfortunately in Nye County and his(^) crimes are in Clark...but might still be worth seeing if they recovered stolen climbing gear  in his car

Scottmx426 wrote:

Did your gear have blue tape?  

I inquired about his add. Here is the interaction. He certainly doesn’t climb. 

"Gas money" = meth.