Irondequoit police chief responds to string of vehicle thefts

ROCHESTER, N.Y. – Car thefts are getting the attention of police departments all across the Rochester community, including Irondequoit Police Chief Scott Peters.

“Let’s just take the stolen cars. I mean you just look at the stolen cars. Perfect thing. My mom last week. She almost had her car stolen. She’s got a Kia. They put in an anti-stealing device in that will shut the battery off,” Peters said.

But even with the addition of the safety device, Chief Peters said the danger didn’t stop there.

“I get a call at 3 o’clock in the morning from my mom, thinking the worst, she’s 80 years old. You think she fell down, she’s in the hospital or something like that. Somebody tried to steal my car and the Greece police are here,” Peters said.

It’s an issue that Chief Peters says won’t be solved until parents start taking the threat posed by videos released on the social media apps like Tik-Tok more seriously, which show how to easily break into and hot wire certain vehicle models.

“Until somebody in society is a victim of a crime that’s, you know, influential, I don’t think anything is going to happen. But you know, it’s frustrating,” Peters said.

As of late March, the Rochester Police Department reports more than 900 stolen cars. That’s only 229 fewer than Rochester had in all of 2022.