Parking meters are disappearing in downtown Stockton. A thief, or thieves, are cutting them off and making off with the change.
A surveillance camera caught one thief in the act of cutting off a parking meter in the middle of the day, hiding it in a baby stroller, and then walking away.
Nowadays many people use a phone app to pay for parking, so the thief likely saw only a couple of dollars as his reward.
Stockton Police Officer Joe Silva says the losses the city sees from the stolen meters are anything but small change.
“Each one of those parking meters costs approximately $600 and then add $200 on top of that to actually have someone come out and weld them, so they are vandalizing a lot of city property,” says Silva.
Silva also says there are many places where thieves have struck in downtown including in front of the police station.
He says Crime Stoppers is offering a reward up to $10,000 for information leading to an arrest.
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