[Scan-DC] Interesting Shenandoah County activity last night -- stolen truck

[Andrew Clegg]

There was some relatively interesting scanner activity in Shenandoah County
last night.

Roughly around 10:30, a tractor-trailer was reported stolen from the Sheetz
in Mount Jackson. It was hauling a flatbed loaded with copper "chunks." Shen
Co and all of the surrounding counties put out an APB. The truck was
equipped with a GPS tractor, and about 20 minutes after the initial theft,
the PD was told that the truck was at a particular address on a county side
street, and had been turned off for the last 12 minutes. When PD arrived,
the tractor was there, but no trailer.

About 10 minutes later, a sheriff's unit found a trailer matching a very
similar description heading south on I-81, with Virginia tags. Although the
driver of the stolen truck said that his trailer had Texas tags, the deputy
wisely surmised that the thieves could have switched tags. The Shen Co
sheriff was just about to exit the county, having traveled about 10 miles
south on I-81 toward Harrisonburg/Rockingham County. Shen Co called for
backup from Virginia State Police, but they were busy with a possible fatal
accident (not sure where), so Rockingham was contacted, and the Shen Co
deputy continued following the trailer south on I-81 well into the next
county while he waited a long time for Rockingham to join the fun (his radio
started getting a bit scratchy when he was 20+ miles outside the county).
During the ~1/2 hour that the Shen Co unit was following the suspect
tractor-trailer, he provided a detailed description of the load, which
matched the description of the stolen trailer, according to the driver of
the stolen truck. Finally, Rockingham caught up with him, and they pulled
the tractor/trailer over at the 241 mile marker, which is at Harrisonburg,
about 25 miles outside of Shenandoah County.

After about ten minutes, the unit radioed back to Shen Co and told the
dispatcher it wasn't the right truck. This truck was carrying aluminum, not
copper. Apparently it checked out.

If the thieves had been listening to this whole pursuit on a scanner, they
must have gotten quite a chuckle (while they were probably heading north, or
perhaps west into West Virginia).

The one thing I wondered is whether this was an inside job. I did see a TV
news feature once that showed how easy it was to steal a truck, and that
this was a growing problem. With the high value of copper these days, I
guess a flatbed filled with it must have seemed very enticing to someone.
But whoever stole it must have been a trucker and probably had help to get
that trailer unhitched so fast.