Reason No. 465,781 not to reside in Deeetroit

The blog below was published on the Detroit Free Press website on August 20, 2007. Yeah, it requires no further comment from me:

Welcome to the Motor Theft City

By ONEITA JACKSON
FREE PRESS BLOGGER

When I moved to Detroit six years ago, the official neighborhood welcome Week One was my car window being shattered.

Outside my job a few months later, a second welcome, just in case I missed the hospitality committee the first time: another theft attempt. The rogues didn’t get the car I had then (my mom’s 1979 mint-condition Chevy Caprice Classic), but stole a coworker’s 2001 Jeep Cherokee. Since then, I’ve observed that the psyche of the Motor City thief is deeply connected to the valuable industrial product of the city itself. Cars. Cars (rims, tires, airbags, the whole car itself…) equal cash.

And because I live in a neighborhood where the houses are nice and the cars nicer (i.e., more inviting and more accessible) and police presence is best friends with the words “almost nil,” we’re always getting hit, homeowners and renters alike.

Last week, the warm and fuzzy hospitality committee was particularly busy.

I saw three committee members in action just before dawn Sunday morning.

I called 911 with the license plate of the getaway car and the direction they were going in, but when Detroit police officers arrived 26 minutes later, the committee was well on its way.

No kidding.

When I spotted the would-be thieves sauntering through the neighborhood about an hour later, I called 911 again.

The officers arrived — hey, aren’t you my neighbor? — and the little hoodrats, who looked to be between the ages of 12 and 16, had disappeared up the street.

I pointed, showing my neighbor-officer where they went and offered more information:

“I read the license plate number to the 911 dispatcher,” who didn’t take my name or number when I asked if she needed it. “She didn’t give it to you?” My neighbor-officer said no.

“She didn’t give you the license plate number!” Oneita the Angry Neighbor yelled, arms flailing. “Good grief, I’ve forgotten it now!”

The lady whose car I saw the would-be thieves working on called 311 to make a report later Sunday evening, and the person who took the call told her she didn’t need to make a report because there was nothing they could do.

“With whom am I speaking?” my neighbor asked. The person on the phone said, “You don’t need to know my name.”

Oh, my.

I switched garages Sunday to one that is a few steps closer to where I live. Friday morning, that one was hit.

I woke to a neighbor yelling a string of expletives outside my window at 6:42: “I don’t believe this ---!” Curse word. Curse word. Curse word. “I’m tired of this!”

I raced to the garage where we park. I saw my car was fine. She was going off about her window being busted — it’d happened before in the other garage where we both used to park — and she was infuriated.

Two other cars in the garage were sitting on blocks.