Cops Fight Holiday Porch Pirates With GPS

WESTCHESTER COUNTY, NY — In a joint porch pirates initiative this holiday season, Westchester County Police and 29 municipal police departments have deployed decoy packages that contain a GPS tracking device. It is a multi-agency initiative in the Westchester law enforcement community.

When one of the decoy packages is removed from a porch or other location outside a home or apartment, an audible alarm sounds at the multi-agency Real Time Crime Center at county police headquarters. Detectives assigned to Real Time Crime are able to identify where the package is and its direction of travel. That information is broadcast over the police radio and patrol officers search for and locate the vehicle it is in.

“Operation Porch Pirate has two goals: to identify and arrest persons who are stealing packages from people’s homes, and to serve a deterrent to these thefts. If someone swipes a package from a residence, it just might be ours and we will be coming to get you,” WCPD Commissioner Thomas A. Gleason said.

So far this season, police have had five successful incidents resulting in arrests – four in Yonkers and one in Croton-on-Hudson.

In the last incident, the 2 thieves arrested had multiple packages in their car – not only from the decoy location but others.

One package has been determined to have been stolen in Mount Pleasant, so MPPD is bringing charges in addition to Yonkers PD. Other cases are possible.

PHOTOS: Chief Inspector John Hodges of WCPD is showing a visitor how the tracking works; to his right is Mount Pleasant Police Chief Paul Oliva. A detective locates a package on the move in addition to a larger screen on the wall at RTC that also shows the location and track the package is taking.