CORPUS CHRISTI (Kiii News) -
Vehicle break-ins and thefts, in most areas, are fairly common crimes, which rarely make the news unless the targeted victim happens to be in law enforcement.
Well, it just happened to Nueces County Sheriff Jim Kaelin.
It happened sometime before 3 a.m., while the Sheriff's county car was parked in his driveway at home. The thief somehow got inside the vehicle without breaking a window, taking the sheriff's handheld two-way radio, and nothing more.
"It was a quick snatch and grab, once they got into it, and I'm blessed that that's all they took," Kaelin said.
Kaelin believes the thief obviously wasn't looking to do damage, since nothing other than the two-way radio was taken. He believes it was the work of kids who were up to no good in the middle of the night.
"This morning I got a call from Metrocom, telling me that my radio had been activated and the voice on the other end said, 'find me, find me,'" Kaelin said. "I went to the passenger side of the vehicle, put the key in the lock, opened up the car and the radio was gone."
Corpus Christi police were called out to the sheriff's home where they investigated and collected evidence. While the two-way radio is now useless, since it has been shut off by technicians at Metrocom, the cost will be picked up by fellow crooks.
The replacement of the $2,000 piece of law enforcement equipment will come out of the asset forfeiture fund; money taken from criminals themselves.
