La Crosse leaders praise new law to combat catalytic converter theft in Wisconsin - News8000.com - WKBT
Gov. Evers signed Senate Bill 408 forcing people to prove they own vehicles where catalytic converters come from
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LA CROSSE, Wis. (WKBT) – Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers signed a bill to crack down on an expensive theft that impacts car owners. This new law makes people selling a catalytic converter prove they own the vehicle the catalytic converter came from.
This crime leaves many people confused at first until they realize what’s missing.
“As soon as I turned the key, it was really loud,” said Jeanna Good, a La Crosse resident. “Looked underneath it and said, ‘Yeah someone stole your catalytic converter.’”
A catalytic converter converts toxic gases from a vehicle into less toxic emissions. The only fact thieves care about is the part’s price tag.
“Catalytic converters contain the metal rhodium which has a value of ten times that of gold,” said Rep. Steve Doyle, D-Wisconsin, who represents Wisconsin’s 94th Assembly District.
The National Insurance Crime Bureau found between 2019 and 2020 — the average monthly catalytic converter thefts jumped from 282 to more than 1,200.
La Crosse Police records show 53 thefts since March of 2021. Twelve thefts came this past February. Good is one of those victims.
“How do they do this when it’s parked across the street from my house?” Good said.
Catalytic converters are pretty easy to get at. Anyone with a little wheel cart can wheel right underneath a car and cut one out. Officials say it takes a few minutes for someone to do it. Unless a car is parked inside a garage, it can be done in broad daylight.
“It’s a costly inconvenience to that vehicle owner,” said Chief Charles Ashbeck of the Onalaska Police Department.
Ashbeck said drivers can park next to cameras or inside garages, but he understands those are not luxuries everyone has.
“Quite frankly there’s not much that citizens can do to protect themselves.
“It’s a costly inconvenience to that vehicle owner,” Ashbeck said.
The thieves often get away with it.
“There’s no way to link it back to my van,” Good said.
Evers’ pen turned one senate bill into a law geared toward preventing this crime.
“So, if you want to take it to a scrap dealer you have to show proof of your identification and you have to show paper trail; proving that in fact, it’s yours,” Doyle said.
One of the bill’s sponsors, Doyle, said this law will keep this crime from crossing the Mississippi River.
“People couldn’t sell them to a scrap dealer in Minnesota so they were coming over to Wisconsin,” Doyle said. “Can’t do that anymore.”
Ashbeck said the law takes control of the market.
“If there’s no place for thieves to sell these to, the demand is gonna go way down,” Ashbeck said.
They hope to cut off the fuel of this crime at the source. Ashbeck said scrap yards should keep good records for these sales. That way when law enforcement launches a theft investigation, they have a paper trail to look at.
If a scrap dealer fails to follow the new law, they could face a $1,000 fine and up to 90 days in jail. A second offense carries a $10,000 fine and up to nine months in jail.
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source: https://www.news8000.com/la-crosse-leaders-praise-new-law-to-combat-catalytic-converter-theft-in-wisconsin/
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