PORTLAND, Ore. — With gas prices continuing to soar in Oregon and across the U.S., some thieves have taken to plundering fuel from vehicles instead of angling for more typical valuables.
David Rossman lives on North Holman Street, near the Arbor Lodge area of North Portland. He woke up on Saturday to find that his truck had been drained of gas. And instead of just siphoning fuel out of his tank, the thief apparently drilled a hole underneath Rossman's pickup to get the job done.
A Nest surveillance camera on Rossman's porch caught the whole thing on video, albeit from far away. It's hard to see what the thief looks like, but they first appear on foot — walking up the street and straight to Rossman's truck before disappearing on the other side of it for a moment.
The thief appears to be holding a flashlight, but it's difficult to discern from the video if they have any other tools. After ducking on the far side of the pickup, the figure emerges again, walks back down the street, and disappears into a yard.
Later, Rossman's camera caught the thief returning — this time in a vehicle, what looks to be an older-model SUV. The figure gets out of the vehicle, walks back up to the side of Rossman's pickup, and goes back to the SUV. This process is repeated once more before the SUV pulls away.
"In the process we found out that he walked over here, drilled it, then walked back," Rossman told KGW on Tuesday, "got his vehicle, came back, put gas in his car and left the tank draining as he drove off."
Rossman said that this all happened around 2 a.m. Saturday morning.
Police have said that thieves tend to target bigger vehicles with larger gas tanks, particularly U-Haul trucks. The office manager at a Lebanon HVAC business, Lebanon Servco Inc., said that their trucks have been targeted a few times lately.
Lisa Marks said that the increase in people stealing gas has accompanied rising gas prices. The most recent theft happened last week, when thieves drilled holes into the gas tanks on Servco's trucks and used buckets to collect the fuel — leaving all of the trucks non-drivable.
"All of the trucks have been vandalized, every single one of them," said Marks.
Lebanon Servco is now trying to counter the thefts by installing an electric fence with a security system, and will soon be adding cameras on top of the fence.
Marks said that there can be as many as a dozen U-Hauls in the Servco parking lot at a time, so it can take more than a week to address a truck that's been drained and get it up and running again.
"U-Haul has to have their mechanic come out, their mobile mechanic come out, they fix it, but still it's on empty," Marks said. "That mobile mechanic does nothing else but fix the tank and then another representative ... has to come out, gas it up and make sure it's ready to go."