So this is becoming a thing again I guess.

Tightest labor market country has seen in generations and these dumb kids still can't get jobs???

lol. Bridgeport is such a mess.

Given the prices I've seen offered, per pound, for catalytic converters, on scrap metal price sites ($180/lb.), I'm not surprised.

Not for minimum wage, when they can make a day's pay, in five minutes; this is what happens, when a Civilization is falling apart.

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People are going to start taking the law into their own hands if the law isn’t going to step up and do its job.

I think i’ll booby trap mine with industrial adhesive

Bridgeport moment

Boo hoo, let’s do something about it rather than piss and moan!

Mine was cut out in the parking lot of a mechanic on the west Hartford/ Hartford line. Luckily it was just my older car I was planning on selling but still. Sucks. There's gotta be a solution to this epidemic. I don't want to buy anything nice because I'm afraid it's going to be destroyed

This story was more exciting when I only read the post title. I imagined the cat being stolen from a firetruck. More missed opportunities in Bridgeport

Or the jobs available in their community don't pay enough to live in said community. So they can work and uber on the side to barely survive or look for something easier and or more profitable.

Not gonna lie, I thought that too at first! 🤣

Sadly, this is happening across the country more and more since local leaders won’t let citizens protect their property. And if you do it’s “you escalated the situation so you’re at fault here.” 🤦‍♂️

The P&S sub was just talking about this.

Why aren’t the scrap yards being investigated for taking stolen property ?

Or they can work a full time and part time job and work their way up until they only need one job or until they learn how to invest or have a legal side business. There are many other ways to earn a living besides stealing catalytic converters. Noone wants to work because everyone thinks they should start off at a 6 figure salary. You have to work your way up to that.

How lucky

Cracking down on the individuals who buy these and making it financially not worth their while seems as if it might be a deterrent. Obviously it’s easier said than done or it’d be happening.

Bridgeport gonna Bridgeport

So they really only care when it's the police or fire department I guess.

Why. Why don’t people deserve to have a living wage?

Believe it or not, there is a scrap dealer lobby and of course they fight any attempts to do anything that might "adversely impact legitimate business"

Billions of people around the world manage to get by in the very same conditions, if not worse.......most by learning that working smart is better than working hard.

I 'm not going to be the one to say these kids are incapable of being normal human beings, but they sure as hell aren't special.

Just looked up the values. https://rrcats.com/catalytic-converter-scrap-prices/ no wonder people are stealing them.

I was thinking about this and wondering what could be put under a vehicle that would be difficult to move that you could drive over and park, eliminating any working space underneath.

let's all slam our cars, JDM style

Sir, you're a racist, conspiracy theorist boomer who does metal detecting and doesn't know the difference in the word "hole" from "whole"

Please, calm yourself.

When we had a school lockdown, I’d always check DIL while in the closet to find out why.

Lol of course there is . And I’m sure his name is Tony and he has a crooked nose.

I broke out in a severe Poison Ivy rash once by handling a hose that had been dragged through a bush a year earlier.

Wonder if that substance could be smeared over the converter.

LOL, Like those mice glue traps.

Another good use for skid plates.

The state created new legal framework to prevent stolen cats from being purchased as scrap, but the thieves just go to another state

This has actually happened. There are also a bunch of stories recently on local news sites about it happening to school buses, too.

Example: https://www.ctinsider.com/news/article/East-Hartford-catalytic-converters-school-buses-17735466.php

Time to LoJack your CCs, I guess

Do you mean “Catalytic”?

im told it will smell like bacon when the glue heats up

There is. There wont be a problem if what they're stealing is no longer required on vehicles.

I've seen a few posts online about people putting razor wire under their cars to stop thieves

Where are people getting razor wire? That’s a big liability

The mechanic offered to replace the empty space with a straight pipe. The price difference would probably be huge

That is a very hefty fine if you're caught and the car isnt over 25 years old. Just be aware of that

So what’s you’re plan, just sit in your car with a shotgun 24/7? Put an IED strapped ti your catalytic converter?

Yikes. It's a 2001. Guess it can sit for a few more years.

What’s your plan? Come outside in your pajamas with a baseball bat and threaten the two gun wielding thieves to stop stealing your property? No, you’ll just call someone else to deal with your problem and hope that they get there in time to apprehend them. Hope they don’t post bail, skip the court hearing, and keep on doing what they do. Then you’ll come on reddit and complain about ACAB or some trash and then the cycle of insanity continues. 🤔🤦‍♂️

Why is this news?

Or we could create legislation to go after the legitimate business which are accepting the stolen catalytic converters (which is currently a legal grey area) and stop the problem at its source, while also forcing car insurance companies to cover stolen converters if they don’t, instead of making petty theft a death a sentence that can be meted out without a judge or jury, ya know since we are a country laws and have advanced past a lawless hellscape where people can murder each other for perceived slights.

The biggest problem with your plan though? I’m walking next to your car and I drop something. I roll over and try to fish my whatever out from under your car. You come out of your house and see me rooting around under your car. If we start giving people the ability to respond to perceived theft with deadly force there will be PLENTY of idiots who see me looking for my chapstick or whatever and shoot first and ask questions later because they assume they already know the situation.

I don't know, it seems like it's not worth getting caught. The best you're getting is like $300 for a legal scrapped cat. Some hoodrat showing up with a couple dozen is going to be lucky to get $100 a piece but the amount of damages is like 10+ times that.

Did you sign a liability waiver from the mechanic? IANAL but I feel like they should be responsible for replacing the cat because they failed to adequately secure your car (not your fault).

100% agree. I just googled that site quick. Looks like you just mail them. Seems like when they catch the people stealing them they’re from out of state.

The sad part is a window was smashed to loot the inside. I went and bought a new window piece and gave it to him. Over a month went by and he didn't fix it and then boom, cat gone too. I brought it there to have the computer replaced only since it wasn't starting up every time. Now there's 3 things fucked with it.

I was going to bring up the school buses lol.

Most shops make you sign the estimate which says they’re not liable for any damages or theft that happens to your car while in their property.

Sounds like a perfect use for small claims court (depending on how detailed your contracts/receipts are)

I think the cat needs to be there regardless age if it was originally equipped on the vehicle. It’s all the way back to the 70s when they started coming in all cars.

Having said that, you don’t need to get your emissions checked on cars older that 25 years, so there’s no opportunity for it to be caught on inspection. But I’m fairly sure the cops can charge you for it if they catch you.

Oooo, more legislation that they won’t follow. That’s the solution. Got a problem…just throw another law and increased insurance premiums to cover the cost of covering those claims in a hope that maybe it stops the people who didn’t give a crap about the laws against theft in the first place. Costs gets shifted to any person with a car and even if your insurance covers it, your car is out of commission until it’s repaired. As if people aren’t struggling as it is.

I don’t know if you have never held a gun or trained with one but this idea that people who own firearms will just pop rounds off if they see someone do anything slightly weird is so friggin annoying and absurd. Why the hell would I come up to you and brandish a firearm on a paper thin suspicion without confirming what you were actually doing is a crime? I wouldn’t and neither would the majority of gun owners because it wasn’t even happening when gun laws were more relaxed. I’m pretty sure it doesn’t happen to you on a daily basis if ever and there are more gun owners now than there was years ago.

I get it, you don’t want to hurt someone. We all don’t but there has to be a line drawn somewhere against the criminal who doesn’t give a crap about you or your property.

How many catalytic converters is an innocent persons life worth?

I have actually fired a gun before, more than a few times which is why I am so disturbed by your idea of allowing and encouraging people to treat petty theft as a threat on their life.

You claim the majority of gun owners would fire until the 100% knew the situation but when you have a gun in your hand and you see someone doing something sketchy, you don’t know what they’re doing, your adrenaline starts kicking in, you start shaking, then stand up suddenly, you don’t know if they have a weapon, you hat do you do? I’m your magical world you claim every gun owner would take the time to do a threat analysis of to determine the exact situation but since we’re not all super genius Sherlock Holmes types who can take in all the evidence and calculate the proper course of action in a split second, people will have to make a snap decision.

When untrained people are making snap decisions with a gun in their hands, innocent people WILL die. Maybe it won’t be you that does it, maybe your too good for that, but someone else will. How many catalytic converters is worth an innocent persons life?

Yeah zero contracts. I've never been to a mechanic that writes anything up before work. They tell you what they need to do, do it and you pay them. Course I don't go to any fancy dealers or anything I drive cars that aren't worth high end repairs... Sadly

“How many catalytic converters is an innocent persons life worth?”

They aren’t innocent if they’re committing a crime. And again…I SAID POSITIVE ID. That doesn’t mean you shoot just because they have a weapon and at no time in my reply did I say that that’s what you do.

“I have actually fired a gun before, more than a few times which is why I am so disturbed by your idea of allowing and encouraging people to treat petty theft as a threat on their life.”

No. I’m simply stating that a person should have the right and ability to adequately defend their property from potentially armed criminals.

“You claim the majority of gun owners would fire until the 100% knew the situation but when you have a gun in your hand and you see someone doing something sketchy, you don’t know what they’re doing, your adrenaline starts kicking in, you start shaking, then stand up suddenly, you don’t know if they have a weapon, you hat do you do?”

Again, that’s brandishing and a completely hypothetical reaction not based on anything factual related to this situation. If you want I can provide links to surveillance footage of actual deadly force encounters and you can see for yourself how people react in these kinda of situations.

“I’m your magical world you claim every gun owner would take the time to do a threat analysis of to determine the exact situation but since we’re not all super genius Sherlock Holmes types who can take in all the evidence and calculate the proper course of action in a split second, people will have to make a snap decision.”

What are you even talking about? You’re saying in my magical world but I’ve been in these scenarios both training and in real life. It doesn’t take a sherlok holmes to have a firearm holstered, approach a situation from a position of dominance, and issue verbal commands to stop the criminal act, or defend yourself if they present you with deadly force. Making it known that there’s a high probability that criminal acts can be met with deadly force if escalated, deters crime. If not, armed guards wouldn’t exist.

“When untrained people are making snap decisions with a gun in their hands, innocent people WILL die. Maybe it won’t be you that does it, maybe your too good for that, but someone else will.”

That’s why training goes hand in hand with being armed and I’ve always said that.

“How many catalytic converters is worth an innocent persons life?”

Then don’t call the police and risk their innocent life when you have a problem. 🤷‍♂️

Maybe instead create a private cause of action? Let the owners of stolen catalytic converters file massive, ruinous lawsuits against companies buying them, with additional damages awardable to the local police department where the converter was stolen to compensate for their time dealing with / tracking down thieves.

Might be tough to track down the buyer, but if both you and the cops get a ton of money when you do, then everybody would be motivated to put in that effort.

Ask the Electric Companies, and The Municipalities. Nationwide, Copper gets a good price, and the Electric Companies have a terrible time with theft of copper wire. People have been known to sneak into Electric Substations, at night, and steal Copper (and perhaps, aluminum) wiring, because of the price it can get, at the scrap yards. It was so bad in Ohio, that The State passed a law, requiring that anyone selling Copper wiring, to the Scrap Yards, was required to "sign off" when they receive payment for it. There was a case, in my hometown of Columbus, where a thief cut down a utility pole, in the wee hours of the morning, to steal Copper Wire from the lines, and perhaps the transformer; knocking out power in the immediate area.

People have gone into vacant homes, and rented Apartments, and "gutted" them, of anything that can be passed as scrap. I've seen storm sewer gratings, and manhole covers stolen, as well as street light wiring boxes, vandalized. The thieves take the Aluminum Covers, exposing the wiring, and maybe take the wiring, itself. This exposes the wiring to The weather, and Children. Iron and Steel doesn't bring a high price, per pound, but a 100-pound Sewer Cover, can net you, $5.

Maybe instead create a private cause of action? Let the owners of stolen catalytic converters file massive, ruinous lawsuits against companies buying them, with additional damages awardable to the local police department where the converter was stolen to compensate for their time dealing with / tracking down thieves.

Might be tough to track down the buyer, but if both you and the cops get a ton of money when you do, then everybody would be motivated to put in that effort.

(This could work for any stolen auto issue really - somewhere up the chain is a legitimate business and the owners of that business really don’t want to get hit with multi million dollar lawsuits for trafficking stolen auto parts)

First of all they are innocent. A) our criminal Justice system is based on the presumption of innocence until proven guilty in a court of law and b) in case you missed it in my comment, I am referring to a case where a car owner comes up and sees someone near their car and THINKS they are thieves despite the fact that they are not. If I drop my keys and they roll under your car for example. In this case they definitively ARE innocent in every sense of the word.

I have seen plenty of videos of the use of deadly force. How about the one where a police officer shot a kid holding a pear because he thought it was a grenade? There are plenty of videos of people being killed because the person with a gun THOUGHT they were in danger but they either due to a lack of training or just the fact that humans are fallible, jittery idiots on the whole, are capable of making split second mistakes, Including “trained” individuals. And given the current “training” required to be a gun owner is a power point presentation, a multiple choice test and firing a couple rounds in a gun range, I wouldn’t exactly consider that adequate training. You can claim you want gun owners to be better trained for real world situations, fine I can agree with that, but you cannot deny that they currently ARENT and taking woefully untrained people and allowing them and even encouraging them to use firearms in real world situations will, inevitably, lead to them making incorrect assumptions and decisions and will, inevitably, lead to them causing the deaths of innocent people. So I ask again, how many catalytic converters is worth an innocent persons life?

Maybe instead create a private cause of action? Let the owners of stolen catalytic converters file massive, ruinous lawsuits against companies buying them, with additional damages awardable to the local police department where the converter was stolen to compensate for their time dealing with / tracking down thieves.

Might be tough to track down the buyer, but if both you and the cops get a ton of money when you do, then everybody would be motivated to put in that effort.

(This could work for any stolen auto issue really - somewhere up the chain is a legitimate business and the owners of that business really don’t want to get hit with multi million dollar lawsuits for trafficking parts)

Might catch fire, too; when the glue heats up.

It's not just the cats, it's the precious metals inside the cats. That's the prime reason.

Like you said, that’s if you can track down the buyer especially if they’re taking it out of state. Is there any identification or registration on those cats to prove which one is yours? Honest question.

Bicycles are stolen for the same reason, and Scrap Yards, and some Bike Shops, will purchase them, no questions asked; Bicycles also don't have VIN numbers.

That could be considered Accepting Stolen Property, and Fencing; too. But just try to enforce it. Some Criminal Organizations also load the stuff into shipping containers, and ship it out of The Country, before Authorities know it.

So, You just go around shooting innocent people, because they, or what they're doing, looks suspicious. As Yakov Smirnoff once said, "What a Country!"

Besides, Ethics left the building, a long time ago. When Our so-called "Pillars of the Community" commit crimes, and get off, scot-free, or nearly so, why do you expect Ethical Behavior, from the Lower Classes?

I listen to NPR a lot, and a long time ago, and I believe the person quoted was referring to Ronald Reagan: "A fish rots, from the head." I couldn't believe it, but NPR actually brought on a scientist, who assured The Public, that a fish begins rotting, from the liver.

The issue is that once the catalytic material is removed from the converter it is basically impossible to prove it was not stolen. So you’re right you cannot enforce it that way. So create requirements that catalytic material sales needs permits and licenses. Or that one-off sales need to provide proof of purchase and that the place purchasing the catalytic converter must obtain prior proof of purchase and retain that proof for a period of so many years.

There are ways to do this, we just aren’t.

“First of all they are innocent. A) our criminal Justice system is based on the presumption of innocence until proven guilty in a court of law and b) in case you missed it in my comment, I am referring to a case where a car owner comes up and sees someone near their car and THINKS they are thieves despite the fact that they are not. If I drop my keys and they roll under your car for example. In this case they definitively ARE innocent in every sense of the word.”

I’ve explained “positive id” relative to your example of innocence twice and I’m not explaining it a third. You obviously aren’t getting it.

“I have seen plenty of videos of the use of deadly force. How about the one where a police officer shot a kid holding a pear because he thought it was a grenade? There are plenty of videos of people being killed because the person with a gun THOUGHT they were in danger but they either due to a lack of training or just the fact that humans are fallible, jittery idiots on the whole, are capable of making split second mistakes, Including “trained” individuals. And given the current “training” required to be a gun owner is a power point presentation, a multiple choice test and firing a couple rounds in a gun range, I wouldn’t exactly consider that adequate training. You can claim you want gun owners to be better trained for real world situations, fine I can agree with that, but you cannot deny that they currently ARENT and taking woefully untrained people and allowing them and even encouraging them to use firearms in real world situations will, inevitably, lead to them making incorrect assumptions and decisions and will, inevitably, lead to them causing the deaths of innocent people.”

You are seriously stretching what defines an innocent person as a generalization in these cases. Even more, the kid with a pear. Okay let’s take that case. What information was given to the officer prior to him shooting that kid with a pear vs me happening upon you with your dropped chapstick next to my car? You’re implying a very choice set of variables that have to happen in sequence that would lead to me thinking that you were stealing my cat. Which is highly unlikely because any thinking person can see that you don’t have a sawzall and will probably state that you dropped your chapstick. I’m saying NO ONE thinks like that unprovoked, armed or not. I beg to ask because there are armed people among us everyday, has that ever happened to you where someone thought you were stealing something and pointed a gun at you without question just because you were bent over?

“So I ask again, how many catalytic converters is worth an innocent persons life?”

🤦‍♂️

🤦‍♂️ And another one that can’t read. What a country indeed.

What is the deal with stealing these converters? Are these things worth thousands or something??

Dude. Are you serious? Our police are trained (to some extent) to obtain”positive id” of wrong doing prior to using deadly force and guess what? They get it wrong not infrequently. And those are people who do this for a living and are trained, quite specifically, in doing this. And you want to empower some dumbass whose only training is an afternoon sitting through a PowerPoint on gun safety and firing 3 rounds in a gun range to try and do the same thing?

You are so hung up on the idea that people would only use deadly force if the are 100% sure of wrongdoing but that completely isn’t the case. Look at Ahmaud Arbery. Those guys killed him, thinking he was a threat, because he was jogging in the “wrong” neighborhood. People make mistakes, especially when they believe themselves (correctly or incorrectly) to be in a life or death situation. In the case of the kid with the pear, the cop asked the kid to put his hands in the air. He did and he happened to have a pear in his hands, the cop thought it was a grenade so he shot him. Our trained professionals get this wrong, which is the entire reason they are given qualified immunity, and you expect someone without their training to do better? This isn’t some Hollywood movie, you’re not a superhero.

They can get a job, can’t guarantee the job pays a livable wage with needed benefits

awesome, it can pull double duty to keep you warm while driving

I love the “this isn’t some hollywood movie” because pretty much everyone who’s shot a firearm knows hollywood is trash when it comes to anything realistic about firearms. Also tells me where you’re getting your information from. TV and not the range.

You guys are fine with throwing around “innocent until proven guilty” and want to talk to me about reality but throw around extreme circumstances or outliers that aren’t even remotely representative of the values or training of the majority of law enforcement or civilian gun ownership. In both cases people decried the actions of the officer and those looney toons that chased down Amaud.

But since you want to throw around incidents lets go there. Earlier this year an armed citizen, stopped a violent attacker, Estaban padron, who had slashed two other applebees employees. No shots were fired. This happened in upstate NY of all places. Was an “innocent” person killed? No. Did it stop the criminal activity? Yes.

Remember Shawn Sutton and his wife Melody? Dude pretended to be a customer to rob a gas station in North Georgia. Two armed customers noticed the situation, stopped the robbery, and held the two at gun point until officers arrived. No one died in that petty theft event.

Or this one. Stopped theft without a shot being fired. I could go on. That’s reality.

My invitation is always open if you guys want to hit up the range, a gun class, a self defense and firearms law course both of which are taught by law enforcement and attorneys so you can see for yourself.

Surprise surprise. Bridgeport.

I possess and use firearms, I have hands on experience shooting a gun. I did not ever claim that SOME gun owners are capable of what you’re claiming, I am saying that <100% of them are. I’m sure that people with guns are, in some cases, capable of being useful but statistically speaking, having untrained armed citizens get involved in law enforcement leads to higher likelihood of innocent people (often random bystanders) being shot 12345

You would think insurance companies would be lobbying to keep scrap yards from taking catalytic converters without proof of ownership of the car it came from... I mean my insurance company paid to have it replaced with an aftermarket one, payed to have the aftermarket one replaced with another aftermarket one, paid to have it replaced again... it has to be hurting their bottom line at some point

Not really sure how any of that has anything to do with the price of custard, but still, here we are.