A number of cars were stolen from Tacoma Mall. Here’s why police aren’t investigating
Kesia Andersen was shopping recently at the Tacoma Mall with her 14-year-old daughter and friends for their school’s homecoming. After a few hours, they discovered Andersen’s Kia Optima missing from the parking lot.
Andersen was one of six people whose car was stolen from outside the mall on Sept. 24. According to the Tacoma Police Department, the thefts and three attempted thefts were all Kias and Hyundais, and they happened between 7:30 a.m. and 5 p.m. Three more were stolen there over the next two days.
The Optima was later found in Bellevue, but Andersen said the ordeal left her feeling violated. She’s a single mother living in South Bend, and she has another daughter, 12-year-old Shirleyann, awaiting a heart transplant at the Seattle Children’s Hospital. Without the car, Andersen wouldn’t have been able to drive to her if something critical had happened. Also likely lost in the theft were her daughter’s $1,500 defibrillator and a wagon that helped transport supplies she needed.
“When I asked Tacoma PD if they wanted the evidence or to fingerprint my car, they asked if it was involved in a crime. I said, ‘Yeah, it was stolen.’ They said that’s not considered a crime that they would investigate,” she said.
Tacoma Police Department spokesman and detective William Muse said the department is part of the Puget Sound Auto Theft Task Force and a Tacoma police officer is assigned to the unit. That detective was shot while on duty two weeks ago and is still recovering.
“The task force was designed to investigate auto theft-related crimes throughout the Puget Sound area, so our cases go to them to investigate,” Muse said in an email.
According to the task force and Tacoma PD, their respective detectives are not looking into Andersen’s case.
Puget Sound Auto Theft Task Force
Sgt. Jeff Carroll, who supervises the detectives for the task force said it takes on the most prolific auto theft cases or cases that have a high dollar amount in Pierce County and South King County cities.
“We don’t take every auto theft case from all those cities. Tacoma is still responsible for investigating the general auto thefts and whatnot, but we do take as many cases as we can,” he said, “We’re currently down to just four detectives, so you can imagine the 70 or 80 or so cars that are stolen every day in King and Pierce County. We can’t do them all.”
According to auto theft data from the task force, in August 2023 there were 722 reported stolen cars in Pierce County and 1,684 stolen in King County, which is an average of 78 a day.
Carroll said that car owners can protect their vehicles by having anti-theft devices such as a club or alarm system. Kia and Hyundai owners should get the anti-theft software update if they are eligible.
Muse said that Tacoma police have to make logical decisions on how they use resources. There are many sexual assaults and homicides in Tacoma that need DNA and evidence collection, he said.
Andersen said she was also told that Tacoma PD did not want the evidence in her car because it costs too much to process.
Muse said crime-scene technicians, depending on the agency, will collect evidence strategically for the purposes of trying to identify a suspect. He said that DNA evidence proves the presence of someone’s DNA on an item. It does not prove how the DNA got there and the story of what happened.
‘“Cost is a relative term that includes resources, personnel and time. If, by way of professional experience, we know that processing an item will not prove, beyond a reasonable doubt – the criminal court standard, the evidence implicates a suspect, a logical decision has to be made,” Muse said in an email.
He said that the Puget Sound task force collects evidence and processes it for auto theft crimes. If there was video surveillance in Bellevue of Andersen’s car, then the task force could use it.
No arrests have been made in regards to last week’s car thefts, Muse said.
Andersen said if someone sees another person trying to steal a car, they should say something.
“Why people do this to people, I don’t even understand,” she said. “The one thing that I keep going back to is that my parent caregiver badge for Seattle Children’s was hanging in the rear view mirror, and I know that they saw that. It didn’t even faze them.”
A GoFundMe was created to help support Andersen’s daughter and family as Shirleyann awaits a heart transplant.
This story was originally published October 2, 2023 at 1:42 PM.
