Human trafficking truck of choice

Some time last night someone attempted to steal my old truck from in front of the house. I’m a vigilant person by nature, so it didn’t shock me too much to find I had been victimized. On a certain level, I am always expecting reality to meet my darker, Hobbesian expectations. There’s even a feeling of resolution, as if, yes, I was proven right: it is wise to be vigilant. It can be useful to expect bad things so that you are not lulled into a false sense of security.

I just went out as I normally do to get on the road and noticed that the door had been jimmied open, breaking the plastic around the door lock and denting the door. Looking into the truck, the console had been opened and the glove box was hanging open with its former contents spilled onto the floor of the cab. At first I thought someone had just broken in to burglarize the truck. As I got in and looked around to see if anything of value was missing, I noticed that the ignition had been destroyed with a screwdriver or similar, which meant someone had tried to steal the truck. There was nothing else missing that I could see. I guess everything was opened to try to find any keys, cash, or guns.

I called the police to file a report and a crime scene officer came to collect prints, which I expect nothing will come of. But, he did mention that Ford F-250s like the one I have are popular targets. They often end up abandoned near the Mexico border. The seats ripped out to make it easier to smuggle people across the border into the US, which conjured all sorts of visions of desperate figures huddled in the dark cab of my old truck, crammed together like a college prank. The guy who fixed my ignition cylinder told me of an image he saw once of 20 people crammed into the cab of a Ford F-150, which has less than half the interior space of a truck like mine.

It’s easy to become scared or discouraged, but it made me feel better that my vehicle was probably targeted rather than the possibility that there is just someone out there trying to steal a vehicle opportunistically. That feels more vulnerable for some reason. It’s a small distinction, but it helps me. It means that I can take steps to make my truck less attractive to this community of thieves looking for trucks of my type, who are acting on a dubious, but ultimately rational basis. I can tolerate being a victim of a rational actor more so than an irrational, pure opportunist. If that makes sense.

 

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