Police seeking info on stolen truck

January 3, 2011

Major crimes in Boundary County, except to law enforcement officers, are rare. A December 29 truck theft outside a Main Street restaurant in which the stolen vehicle was found floating down the Kootenai River, headlights on, even before the rig had been noticed missing, may give lie to that assumption. While nothing has been ruled out yet, including dumb luck, Bonners Ferry Assistant Police Chief Joel Minor is concerned that "professional" thieves might have been at work, and he's asking the community's help not only in solving this crime, but in preventing any similar occurrences. "This was fast," he said. While an expensive truck wound up beneath the waves of the Kootenai ... the thieves didn't get away empty handed. "The owner of the truck had just moved to Bonners Ferry from Portland, Oregon," he said. "She stopped at the Panhandle Restaurant for dinner. We recieved a report from a northside resident of lights on the river that looked like a vehicle, and officers were on scene before the truck sank. Less than half an hour later, a new Bonners Ferry resident reported that her vehicle wasn't where she'd left it." Bonners Ferry Police Officer John Lunde ... who ran down the river shining his flashlight into the driver's side window of a vehicle sinking beneath the surface of the Kootenai, looking for signs of distress, saw an empty cab. Despite argument from the many who descended on "his" crime scene, Officer Lunde kept people ashore despite the propensity of "rescuers" to jump into the water. As he was convinced, the first divers to reach the rig found the vehicle empty ... and after the expensive vehicle was pulled from the water, it was confirmed; nobody was inside. It was later determined that in the short time between the theft of the rig and the time it was found, much of the owner's property that was in the truck, computers, personal belongings, etc., was gone. "It appears that from the time the vehicle was stolen to the time it was found in the river, less than 15 minutes later, everything valuable inside the vehicle was removed," Minor said, "and the rig was floating in the water." The owner of that rig, when she called it in, didn't report the vehicle stolen, but "maybe moved." Police have an idea where the truck entered the river; and they are developing information to put a case together based on forensics the culprits left behind in the truck. Anyone who may have seen anything should call City Hall, (208) 267-3105, or the Sheriff's Office, (208) 267-3151.