A stolen car was itself stolen in Tacoma as theft crisis increases

A Pierce County Board candidate and business owner said her car was stolen twice within moments.

Kelly Chambers is the owner of Visiting Angels, a home health care agency in Tacoma. She said her business relies on Kia vehicles for managers and supervisors to visit clients. On Aug. 30, one of her supervisors had a Kia stolen while he was visiting a client.

“She comes out, the car is gone and our office started getting calls that the car was trying to run people off the road,” Chambers told “The Jason Rantz Show” on KTTH.

Chambers said the car was soon abandoned, but before she could retrieve it, another thief stole it again. It wasn’t until Sunday that the car was abandoned and eventually towed.

While auto thefts have dropped from their record highs in 2022 and 2023, they are still significantly higher than they were before the left-wing criminal justice reforms of 2020. The Puget Sound Car Theft Task Force reported 393 vehicles stolen in Pierce County and 1,148 in King County in April, for an average of 51 stolen cars per day.

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How did the widespread problem of car theft in Pierce County inspire him to run for public office?

With car thefts spiraling out of control, this wasn’t Kelly Chambers’ only encounter with thieves. Another Visiting Angels employee had her car stolen in Tacoma.

Although it was eventually recovered, “it’s pretty beat up,” Chambers said, and the worker, a single mother of three, has no money to repair it for now.

Experiences like these prompted Chambers, who also serves as a state representative, to run for Pierce County Board of Directors.

“There’s just a lot of signals from the left to criminals that anything is possible,” Chambers explained. “And the reality is that someone who steals a vehicle today is not going to spend the night in jail. They’re probably going to be released the same day. So someone is a long way from actually being prosecuted and held accountable for this kind of thing.”

As Pierce County Executive, Chambers aims to work with the new Pierce County Sheriff and Prosecutor to target the offenders who “cause the most destruction.” She wants to prioritize the top 10 most prolific offenders, stating, “They cause the most damage and make our neighborhoods unsafe.”

Chambers places much of the blame on Democrats in the state legislature who pass soft-on-crime laws that embolden criminals. She is particularly concerned about the rise in juvenile crime, which is fueling Tacoma’s stolen-car epidemic.

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Democrat-backed laws have fueled the stolen car crisis in Tacoma and the rest of the state

As part of the Democratic-led legislation, a new law prohibits police from questioning juvenile suspects without an attorney present, even if a parent gives consent. The law continues to hamper investigations into juvenile crime. What’s troubling is that juveniles in custody are housed with inmates as young as 25, not just other juveniles.

Chambers said we need to focus on accountability, but we can’t stop there. We also need to address the root causes of juvenile crime.

“We need to talk to kids about drug use and abuse and really emphasize that. One of my good friends started the Late Night at the Y program where he went out into the streets and pulled kids out of gangs and into the gym where they could play basketball and have fun,” Chambers said.

While it may seem simple, these types of programs can lead to big changes, Chambers said.

“I’m a parent,” she said. “I kind of believe in, (and) my parenting style is, keeping kids busy enough that they don’t get overloaded, but don’t have time to get into trouble.”

Chambers is running against Pierce County Councilman Ryan Mello, a Democrat, for the Pierce County Executive position. Mello has previously supported some of the criminal justice reforms that are largely responsible for the current crime crisis.

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