Two staff of California Country Club outwitted a thief to find more than $25,000 worth of goods stolen from the Whittier, Calif., property.
Many club managers have experienced the panic of a late-night or early-morning phone call from a club employee. In October, Tim Walker, CCM, General Manager of California Country Club in Whittier, Calif., received such a call from Monta Sokolovska, the club’s Head Golf Professional, after four golf carts and their chargers, with a total value of over $25,000, had been stolen from the club’s grounds.
When Walker arrived at the club, Sokolovska had already spoken to a police officer who had taken a report, but she was concerned the officer “didn’t seem to take the loss too seriously.” Sokolovska suggested that the officer fingerprint the entry door, where it appeared that the thief had entered, but the officer said he didn’t see any sign of forced entry.
“The officer completed his report, leaving Monta frustrated by the lack of action and any hope of follow-up investigation that might lead to the recovery of our carts,” says Walker.
Walker and Sokolovska then took it upon themselves to comb through security-camera footage. Eventually, they found video of a flatbed tow truck coming through the club’s front gate at 4 a.m. The infrared camera captured a lone figure loading each of the four missing golf carts onto the tow truck and departing the property just 15 minutes before California CC’s golf course maintenance crew arrived for the day.
After calling the club’s insurance company to report the potential loss, and then informing the police that they had video of the theft, Sokolovska broke the case open when she tracked the stolen golf carts’ GPS units. Walker and Sokolovska set out to find the carts on their own, after the officer told them, “If you guys want to do your own investigation, then we’ll stay out of it.”
In a residential neighborhood in Azusa, Calif., about 14 miles from the club, Walker and Sokolovska spotted the flatbed tow truck’s distinctive grill, and then quickly called the Azusa Police. Three cruisers arrived, but after one officer went to investigate around the house where the truck was parked, he came back to report that he didn’t find anything.
“We could knock on the door,” the officer told Walker and Sokolovska. “But then three things could happen: They don’t answer, they refuse to talk, or they won’t let us inspect their alley or garage. Without a warrant, we are pretty much at a dead end.”
Walker continued to search the GPS trail on his phone for additional clues, and found that the fourth cart was sending a signal from about a block away. An officer then went to a nearby apartment complex, where he found all four carts hidden behind a large carport, with California CC logos on the hoods and the club’s scorecards still on the steering wheels. One of the officers went into a laundry room and found the GPS unit in the trash. “Even though the wires on the GPS unit had been cut, its internal lithium battery was still active, sending out a signal,” Walker says.
Once a search warrant for the suspect’s apartment was issued, police entered and found a stack of license plates, with an initial search revealing that three of them belonged to cars that had been stolen in the previous 24 hours. What’s more, it was found that the tow truck used for the California CC theft had itself been stolen less than 48 hours earlier. And in another room, a stash of stolen personal property was discovered.
“Thanks to our GPS system, we not only solved the case, but helped the police capture a car thief in the process,” Walker says.
For other club facilities, he offers these “lessons learned” from the experience to help prevent equipment theft:
• Make frequent changes to gate and security codes as staff changes occur.
• Review security-camera coverage around the club, to ensure that camera angles capture as much of the parking lot, cart staging area, and other important views as possible.
• Ensure that cart-barn doors have metal plates protecting the latch and throws, so they can’t be opened with a screwdriver or credit card. As a second level of security, padlock all cart-barn doors from the inside, so if someone were to break in, opening the doors is much more difficult.
• Keep a record of all equipment serial numbers, including GPS units, and tie them back to the actual cart numbers.
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