I was thinking that I was going
to write something on it,
and then I realized that it
would look just like the scarf
and with its custom Portland
Timbers paint scheme.
So I put no pity across the back.
You can't miss Paul Reagan
and his 1981 Chevy Camaro.
It was easy to spot.
I'm sure people who have
just a Honda or a Subaru,
it's much harder to.
Which came in handy in May when
someone stole Reagan's favorite ride.
The people in the dog park were like,
why is Paul driving so insane?
Like going over the speed
bumps and bottoming out and.
Sparks flying up. They're like,
what's he doing? He reported it to police.
I secretly harbored, you know,
that I would get it back.
Who offered some advice,
put it on next door and
talked to PDX stolen cars.
PDX stolen cars. A group run in part
by repair shop owner Nick Haas. I
gotta hand it to the the
power of social media
and founder Titan Crawford.
I'm glad you had the police
report so I could tell it was
stolen together on a mission.
To bring cars snatched by crooks
back to their rightful owners.
I had found a stolen car in my neighborhood.
I knew it was stolen.
I contacted the police and they said,
yeah, there's not a whole
lot we can do right now.
So I was like, well.
See if I can do something
starting small last fall and quickly
taking off with now 10,000 passionate
Portlanders making up the Facebook group.
I'm going where all these people coming
from and realize there's a huge problem
of theft of property in Portland.
According to Portland police,
some 3300 vehicles were reported stolen
in the first seven months of 2020.
In 2021, that jumped to over 4100.
This year it's spiked with a whopping
6312 stolen cars reported
from January 1st through July.
It's just a shame that you know.
As they say, necessity is
the mother of invention.
Between police reports, Vins and
vehicle descriptions, group members
Crowdsource and cross reference
to help track down
hundreds of cars. Sometimes
the clues lead to dead ends,
but not this time.
She sent me a picture from this man's.
Phone that obviously was the no pity Camaro.
Paul's Pride and joy spotted from above at
the dusty end of North Midway Ave in St.
John's, in the middle of a wooded area and on
private property. It's widely
understood by those who live nearby,
like Randy Reed. It's part
Chop shop, part homeless camp,
and either way, he says notorious,
another friend of mine's car got stolen
about a month ago and came down here,
and it was right here in this spot
with the hum of metal.
And metal through the trees.
There's like a dozen maybe 1415
cars back there right now that are
partially stripped, some partially not.
There's a bunch of people back in there
a little out of control.
Neighbors say. It's scary.
I don't know what the deal is
because this seems like more than
just a camp with drug dealing fires.
People armed with weapons, they say.
On top of all those cars, though,
it seems Portland police are aware
in this Instagram video posted.
Last month, it appears an officer
drives a stolen Ford F-250 off the
property and according to PPB,
three people were detained
following this recovery.
But the PDX stolen car guys
say law enforcement isn't
doing nearly enough to address
the persistent problems,
and they're still pulling cars in to this
day, every day right now in stripping them.
And it's why they're stepping in.
I dive into it, I get on my laptop,
I tell everybody I know that's good at this.
We need to figure out who the owner is.
I make a few phone calls,
I pull a few strings. We get lucky
with luck on their side when a group
member shared that drone photo,
the final clue to recovering
Paul's camera. Here we are in
the chop Shop, North Portland.
A month after it went missing,
covered in dirt, but mostly intact.
We had to winch it out,
which was a whole thing too,
and and then drove it out.
After this search and rescue, Paul's more
careful about where he parks.
Grateful for a group of people like
Titan and Nick that didn't give up,
who with the will and the drive
finally found the no pity Camaro.
Thank gosh they're they're doing
what they're doing and it seems
like such a great way cause.
It's just rampant right now. And
all of that raises the question of whether
police could and should shut down
what neighbors call much more
than a chop shop. It's clear from that
Instagram video you saw they are aware. And
while PPB provided some context
about stolen cars in general when it
comes to that particular property,
in St. John's it was radio silence.
So, Alma, what about the owners of that lot?
I mean you managed to track them down too.
And that is where it gets
even more interesting, David.
They've had it since the
1980s and over the past years.
Have spent 10s of thousands of
dollars of their own money, they say,
trying to clear, clean and secure
it. These big blocks of concrete here,
they shelled out about 10 grand earlier
this year to block off access only
for people running this operation,
if we can call it that,
to drive through the bushes instead.
So the owners tell
me they've reached out to police,
they've reached out to the city, and one
of the responses they say
they got their lawyer called.
Pretty much mind boggling.
We're working on a follow up.
Story, because right now they say there's
a lack of action and no easy solution.
Yeah, to a crisis that's about much more
than cars that has been years in the making.
I am shaking my head here, Alma.
Really appreciate your reporting tonight.