GPS Tracker Busts Bus Scrap Metal Bandits
10 Jun 2013In Chicago, GPS trackers, similar to LiveView GPS trackers, helped locate stolen school buses. Unfortunately, what they found was a pile of rubble.
Eight yellow school buses were stolen from the Sunrise Bus company yard. This lot is located on the 10000 block of South Torrence Avenue in Chicago, Illinois. In the middle of the night on a Thursday, eight buses were taken from the lot, and not discovered missing until the next morning at around 5:00am.
Sunrise Bus company yard is responsible for providing school buses to public schools in Chicago.
When Gregory Bonnett, the owner of the bus yard and 4-decade veteran of the school bus business, received a call from police saying they found his property, he was ecstatic. But when he got to the site, he found all eight buses were scrapped. All that was left was a pile of metal, shredded for scrap and parts.
“I expected to pull up and meet the police and see eight buses,” Bonnett said. “I got here and I saw exactly what you’re looking at now. A pile of scrap with school bus yellow.”
The buses were found by a GPS tracker that was installed on the buses. Police used the tracker to follow the route to the Gonzalez Auto and Truck Parts store on Lawndale Avenue in Chicago. Here, police went through piles of wreckage until they found five buses partially stripped and three more that were completely shredded.
The police contacted an expert in selling scrap metal, and determined if all eight buses had been scrapped, the seller would get approximately $15,000 for them. The buses probably would be worth $1,500 to $3,500 each as scrap, said said Joe Pickard, chief economist for the Institute of Scrap Recycling Industries in Washington, D.C.
Dismally, the owner of the company yard is out $250,000. Fortunately, though, there were backup buses for drivers to use on that Friday when these buses were stolen.
The buses weren’t the only thing this particular auto and trucks parts store has been guilty of. Since 2007, they have had multiple violations ranging from making food on site illegally, to not operating with a proper business license. At the time of the police’s search, the owner was hiding in a crawl space, and was taken in with several other employees.
Gonzalez Auto and Truck Parts regularly dismantles used vehicles to sell the parts, but this time they broke the law and will be charged for the theft, according to a spokeswoman for Business Affairs and Consumer Protection.
Police were very surprised to see such a large-scale theft from such a small parts business,. Four individuals are being questioned by the police in the theft scraping, however, the police still aren’t sure how many people were involved in the theft and remainder of the operation. If it hadn’t been for the GPS tracker, chances are, Bonnett and the police department would never have figured out where the stolen buses went.
As for Bonnett, he is now out $250,000 because of the stolen and scrapped school buses. Luckily for him, his bus yard has dozens of buses, and though he needs to replace the eight stolen ones, still has enough for the local children to get to school each day.
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