CLEVELAND – Cleveland and Cleveland Heights police report that a total of five Amazon delivery trucks have been stolen in northeast Ohio since Nov. 25.
Police say the most recently stolen Amazon vehicle was recovered from block 2200 East 43rd Street by Cleveland police on Dec. 17.
Investigators told News 5 that in some cases the thieves grabbed the vehicles while the Amazon driver left the truck in motion to make a delivery.
Cleveland Heights police chief Annette Mecklenburg said that’s exactly what happened in her hometown on Dec. 13, after thieves stole an Amazon vehicle during a delivery at 3200 block of Berkshire Road.
“The driver was delivering a package, got out of the truck and put it on the porch,” Mecklenburg said. “A truck stopped and one of the men got out and jumped into the Amazon truck and drove away. The truck had been left running with the keys. We believe there may be up to 200 packages in the truck in the time of the robbery.For me it is heartbreaking for all the people who had requested.You know that people placed orders online to be safe because they did not want to get sick, so a lot more people placed orders online and waited for these packages and “It’s very close to Christmas, it’s really sad, I feel horrible for people who may not get these packages in time for the holidays.”
Mecklenburg said the Amazon driver was not injured and said GPS tracking aboard the delivery truck helped speed up the recovery effort.
“Unfortunately, there were no cameras in the truck, and at this time, we did not find any cameras in the immediate area where the truck was stolen,” Mecklenburg said. “I understand that his policy is to let them work when he leaves to deliver a package. We have heard that with some of these trucks the drivers are being robbed by people with firearms ”.
News 5 contacted Amazon headquarters to inquire about the truck hijacking and asked if these cases cause the company to be considering changes to the delivery protocol or adding truck surveillance cameras. to help police make arrests. The company responded quickly and said the issues are extremely important to its organization, and once they talk to police, the company will issue a statement.
Meanwhile, Mecklenburg said criminals will face charges of theft of crimes when found.
Both Cleveland Heights and Cleveland police ask anyone with information to come forward.
“Because we won’t surrender, our detectives won’t surrender, our officers won’t surrender,” Mecklenburg said. “I have to believe there is someone who knows who did it. I mean we’re talking about 200 packages and they ended up somewhere.”