INDIANAPOLIS -- Thieves cut through the fence of Rob Foster's business over the weekend – stealing 50 truck batteries and driving a piece of heavy equipment through the front gate on their way out.
Foster owns RC Foster Truck Sales, located in the 1200 block of Troy Avenue. The business appears to be the latest victim in a rash of truck battery thefts on Indy's south and southwest sides.
Last week, Indianapolis police released a surveillance image of suspects in several thefts near I-465 and the Sam Jones Expressway in February.
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Around that same time, 24 batteries were stolen from another trucking lot near Troy Avenue and Bluff Road – just a few blocks from Foster's business.
Weeks later, it was Foster's lot that was hit. But it wasn't his first time.
"As fast as we put the batteries back in … I mean, they're stealing batteries, they're stealing tires. It doesn't matter," he said.
The business' surveillance system caught images of the thieves and a van they used in the heist. But the fact that there are cameras mounted everywhere doesn't seem to deter them, Foster said.
"I've got cameras on this end of the building, and even on this end," he said. "But they seem to know to walk in … and some of them walk right in front of the cameras. They don't care."
The business has sat on the same lot since 1985, when Foster's father operated it. Foster says for most of that time, crime wasn't a major issue.
"I think as long as we've had this property, in the last … hasn't even been 10 years. In the last eight years the crime has increased dramatically," he said. "My father had this building until 2009. In his business, he never had security. Since then, I've had to put an alarm system on the building, cameras, and it still doesn't … they've stayed out of the building, but it hasn't helped on the lot. Like I said, they'll cut the fence and walk right in. They don't care."
Foster, who says his own son struggled with addiction, is pretty sure heroin is to blame.
"I'm telling you, it'll make people do things you never thought they would do. I mean, steal from their family. They don't care. They want that high so bad that they'll do whatever it takes. At $9, yeah … a $150 battery, if they get $9, they don't care. That's $9 in their pocket to go get a hit off of something."
According to Interstate Battery, which sells a range of automotive batteries, that $9 estimate is just about on target for what a new truck battery would get you at a scrap yard. That price is dependent upon the value of scrap metal – in this case lead – which is deflated at the moment.
Foster says when scrap metal prices are high, "you can't leave any piece of any kind of metal out, because they'll take it too."
Police eventually recovered the $60,000 yard spotter the thieves drove off Foster's lot. He says he'll just have to eat the cost of the more than $5,000-worth of batteries they stole.
If you have any information about this or other battery thefts in the area, you're asked to contact Crime Stoppers at 217-262-TIPS.
