FILE— Kamloops RCMP recovered an abundance of stolen goods from a Parkcrest Avenue residence on May 9, 2019.
Image Credit: SUBMITTED/Kamloops RCMP
May 22, 2019 - 5:00 PM
KAMLOOPS — If you happen to fall victim to theft, you'd better hope you were diligent about keeping a good record of your property.
“Probably more than half of the items that are reported missing, people don’t have their serial numbers for,” Cpl Jodi Shelkie said. “So we’re just writing down the make and model.”
They will also record the item’s colour, and any “after-purchase changes” like scratches, stickers, engravings, etc.
Kamloops RCMP recovered stolen tools at a Brocklehurst home last week. The tools, survey equipment, and stolen mail are now in the process of being returned.
“There was one building company that we know some of the tools belong to them because of the way they were marked,” Shelkie says.
As for the rest of the items, investigators are sifting through the computer database to match reports with what the search warrant produced. They will then call the person who reported the item stolen once a match has been founded.
“We notify people as we identify who the owners are, so it won’t all be at once,” Shelkie said. “It’s as time permits as well, so the officers have to do it between calls and so on.”
They cannot just post photos of the stolen items online like a Facebook lost-and-found, nor can they allow people to come in and peruse the items to see if their stolen possessions are among them.
“They can call us and give a description, but they can’t just come in and say, ‘that’s mine,’” Shelkie said.
If items remain unclaimed they are assessed for their value, and if they aren’t able to be resold then they are destroyed.
If they are valuable they go to Bob Woodman, the owner of Dodds Auction and Appraisal in Vernon.
Woodman’s auction service accepts items recovered from Vernon RCMP and Kamloops RCMP. Vernon’s items come in regularly but he makes two or three trips per year to Kamloops. Then he sells the items as they come in during their weekly sales.
“There’s not a huge amount of stuff,” Woodman said on the phone, “There’s never enough just to do a special RCMP sale.”
Woodman has to disclose that the items for sale are from RCMP, and all proceeds return to the city where they’re from. Mostly the RCMP stock consists of tools, bicycles, and electronics. He estimates the combined value from Kamloops and Vernon RCMP sales would be almost $20,000.
“There are very few auctions around anymore that do what we do,” Woodman said. “(We take) it into the public marketplace, right? Where anybody has the opportunity to bid on it versus any other way of getting rid of it.”
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News from © iNFOnews, 2019