Damn, broad daylight and someone justs lifts a whole tailgate from a truck. I guess be glad your truck wasn't on cinder blocks when your wife came back.
I could see how it would be easy to do. Once in high school I thought I would screw around and drop a friends tailgate as he was driving out of a parking lot. The tailgate pulled out of the back of the truck and was only left attached to the truck by the cords on the sides. Luckily he heard me screaming at him to stop so I could pop it back in. Otherwise I would have for sure owed him a new one as it would have been dragging along behind him.
I'm not really questioning how easy it is to remove the tailgate. I'm more amazed a theft of a very large part of a vehicle was done in public without any fear. I mean if I saw this happening in front of me, I think I would know what's going on, it's not like I'm saying to myself "Oh well, that person/people is probably taking that tailgate from their relatives who told them to pick it up, nothing to see here..." A few weeks ago I accidentally left my front door unlocked and ajar for the whole night while I was away. When I came back, I saw the door ajar and thought the worst. Turns out nothing was stolen (that I visibly noticed).
My bike lock broke once and I had to use a saw to get through the chain so I could unlock it from the post. A number of people passed while I was sawing away and no one said anything or questioned what I was doing. For all anyone knew, I was stealing that bike.
All you need a portable saw. It's about as douchey and deserving of a bullet between the eyes as people who strip copper from power lines and houses. Caucasian?
Understood v3.0. My only point was I could see how a person could cut the cables, pull out the tailgate, toss it in the back of a truck and be driving away in under a minute.
My friend got his Motorcycle helmet stolen recently. As any bike rider knows, helmets are expensive. The thieves cut the U-lock in broad daylight in busy parking lot. The casino caught it on tape but won't release the video.
i think you should do you own "sting". Go get another tail-gate, park at Baybrook and leave the tailgate down. Then just lay in your cab and wait. When you feel the tugging from the tailgate being removed, jump out and start blasting.
They took it from my 06 Dodge Ram. The sad thing is, there was a 2009 one isle over from mine. They took the cords, bolts and tailgate. With my luck if I jumped out popping shots, I would be on a camera security "forgot" was there.
I think your wife backed into a fire hydrant and neighbour's tree when leaving the thadeous' house, and was afraid you'd be upset. She ditched the tailgate, and came up with this story.
Someone with a criminal mastermind is bound to know how to approach that truck not looking "suspicious" enough to be noticed as a thief and just pretend it's their own tailgate they're removing. Have someone be a "lookout" for the owners, sit there and do it in a matter of seconds, and take it walking and it looks like nothing happened. Normal everyday car part shopping is normal. You know? Sad, but true.
A guy I worked wih used to steal truck tailgates all the time. One day he showed me on his truck, and it only took like 5 seconds to do it. I was very surprised. He said he would sell the tailgate for like 200 bucks a piece. Damn thieves.
I hate to bring up race into this but I'm guessing you are white? I saw a study on Dateline where they had 3 white teenagers smashing a car with bats during the day in a park within an hour and only 1 person called the cops. They did the same study with 3 black teenagers and 10 people called in the same time span..
Sucks man, robbery, burglars, thieves seem to have really increased here in the Houston area. Low life losers that like to feed off of other people's hard work.
With the economy like it is, and the system currently in place, expect crap like this to skyrocket in the near future. Hide yo kids, hide yo wife.
