Chronic car thieves are South King-North Pierce task force's top priority

Police have long known that a small number of chronic car thieves are often responsible for a huge number of auto thefts in an area, as well as being connected to home burglaries, wire and metal thefts and drug crimes.

Nevertheless, the crime has been at the bottom of the police priority pole partly because convictions carried such low penalties they were almost seen as not worth the effort to investigate and prosecute, according to King County Prosecuting Attorney Dan Satterberg.

But now, a new task force involving 17 law-enforcement agencies in South King County and North Pierce County aims to make catching chronic auto thieves a top priority and gives cops and prosecutors the tools and manpower to do it.

"It was the least important crime on the books, even though if it happened to you, it was a big deal," Satterberg said at a news conference in Kent on Wednesday, announcing the funding and formation of the task force.

"This puts a more accurate price tag on the cost of the crime," he said.

Previously, Satterberg said, it took seven convictions for auto theft before a person spent even a year in jail. Now, under legislation passed in 2007, someone convicted three times for auto theft will face 17 to 22 months in prison.

Additional convictions could add years to a sentence, Satterberg said.

The task force — named PATROL, for Preventing Auto Theft through Regional Operational Links — is being funded by a one-year, $1 million grant from the Washington Auto Theft Prevention Authority (WAPTA).

The target is car thieves who are generally known to local enforcement officers and who operate in South King and North Pierce counties.

"Auto thieves don't know jurisdictional boundaries," Auburn Police Chief Jim Kelly said.

The money will be used, police and prosecutors said, to hire six police investigators, a supervisor and one prosecutor.

Satterberg said the new system will allow prosecutors in both counties to file charges against suspects within 24 hours.

Last year, there were approximately 40,000 reported car thefts in the state, officials said, making Washington state the sixth-worst in the nation in auto thefts.

In addition to hiring personnel, the money will be used to create a mobile fingerprint team to process cars recovered from thefts, according to WAPTA Executive Director Jim Lamunyon, who estimated the cost of the crime to be in the "hundreds of millions."

WAPTA was created after passage of a state bill last year named for Seattle police Officer Elizabeth Nowak, who was killed in 2006 when her car was struck by a vehicle driven by a man in a stolen car. It's funded by a $10 surcharge added to traffic infractions issued throughout the state.

WAPTA has awarded similar grants to agencies in Yakima, Spokane and Clark counties.

Christine Clarridge: 206-464-8983 or cclarridge@seattletimes.com