Chesterton Tribune

 

 

PCSP: Officer recovers 10s of 1000s of dollars in stolen tools in traffic stop

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An alert Porter County Sheriff’s Police officer recovered many thousands of dollars worth of stolen tools following a traffic stop on I-94 on Wednesday, Feb. 18, the PCSP said.

According to police, at 10:52 a.m. Cpl. Paul Czupryn was on patrol in the westbound lanes of I-94 when, near the 18 mile marker, he clocked a minivan at 81 miles per hour in a zone posted at 70 mph. On making contact with the driver--a 49-year-old South Bend man--Czupryn noted that the minivan “was sagging as if it were heavily loaded,” then observed that its rear seats were missing, that “whatever was loaded in the back of the van was covered with numerous blankets,” and that “sticking out from underneath the blanket:” was a cordless drill.

In talking with the driver and his two passengers, Czupryn determined that the three were having a hard time getting their story straight. The first passenger, 47-year-old South Bend man, said they were going to Chicago because “his auntie had died” and they needed “to assist with funeral arrangements”; the second passenger, a a 28-year-old Chicago man, said they were going to Chicago to visit the BMV “so he could get a new license.” The driver, for his part, said “they were en route to Chicago for the rear-seat passenger” but was unable to name the passenger, as they’d only known each other for “a couple of weeks.”

Then, on securing the driver’s permission to search the minivan, Czupryn discovered that, beneath the blankets, was an “astounding” number of tools: power tools, hand tools, and specialty tools. “Many of the drills still had bits in them and the saws all appeared to have blades still in them, Czupryn stated in his report. “The buckets and bags of tools looked as if they’d just been taken off of a job site.”

Meanwhile, Czupryn was advised by the dispatcher that the three subjects in question have “a long history of theft/possession of stolen property/robbery charges.”

Czupryn’s next move was to contact the South Bend PD in an effort to determine whether there’d been any recent reported work-site thefts. The SBPD sent him to the Berrien County, Mich., Sheriff’s Police said, which sent him to the St. Joseph County Sheriff’s Police, which had nothing for him. The SBPD, however, called back later and referred him to the Mishawaka PD, which informed Czupryn “that during the overnight hours a number of construction vehicles had been broken into at area hotels.”

Czupryn subsequently obtained the MPD case reports and found that “nearly every single item” reported stolen by the seven victimized construction and contracting firms “matched” the tools recovered in the minivan.

The minivan was impounded and placed into evidence, the three subjects were released at the scene, and the PCSP is requesting warrants be issued for their arrest on a charge of possession of stolen property.

Czupryn estimated the total value of the stolen tools at “tens of thousands of dollars.”

 

 

Posted 2/23/2016

 
 
 
 

 

 

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