Texas 114 traffic stop leads to discovery of truck chop shop
The slow-moving flatbed truck hauling 18-wheeler parts caught the eye of Keller patrol officer Mike Norris.
The truck was traveling only 30 mph Thursday afternoon on Texas 114, so Norris pulled it over. The stop led detectives to a tractor trailer chop shop and as many as four thieves who dismantled up to $800,000 worth of parts from five stolen trucks.
“It just looks like an 18-wheeler graveyard,” Detective Jesse Minton said Friday morning of the fenced lot in the 4800 block of Keller-Haslet Road. As officers talked to truck driver Rodrigo Garcia on Thursday afternoon, Norris saw the front end of a Freightliner truck on the flatbed trailer, Keller police Lt. Brenda Slovak said.
“The officers ran a number that was on it and it turned out to be stolen,” Slovak said.
Garcia then told police he had obtained the parts from a 2-acre lot on Keller-Haslet Road. He was released after police confiscated the truck parts he was hauling.
Members of the multiagency Tarrant County Auto Theft Task Force obtained a search warrant and combed the fenced lot starting about midnight, Minton said.
They found five stripped trucks, only one of which had a trailer attached, Minton said. Investigators also found large plastic drums labeled “Hawaiian Punch” full of diesel fuel.
“This is the first time I have ever seen an 18-wheeler chop shop,” Minton said. “To get five in a row doesn’t usually happen, and 18-wheeler parts are expensive.” The discovery prompted detectives to obtain a search warrant for Garcia’s home in Kaufman County, where they found a stolen Dodge pickup that had been dismantled, police said. Garcia was arrested on suspicion of auto theft and taken to a jail in Kaufman County, Minton said.
Garcia has not been charged with crimes relating to the chop shop, but he led detectives to a truck parts wholesaler in Ferris, about 20 miles south of Dallas in Ellis County, who police believe unknowingly bought stolen parts.
The chop shop lot was reportedly rented in January, and all the trucks discovered there have been reported stolen since Jan. 16 in Dallas, Balch Springs and Mesquite, Minton said. The lessee, whom police are calling a “person of interest,” is scheduled to meet with police in coming days.
After the three-county overnight investigation, detectives headed home to get some sleep
“It has been a pretty incredible day,” said Minton, who was rushing home Friday night to attend his father-daughter school dance. “We contacted all the victims so they could come and claim their trucks, but unfortunately the damage to all the vehicles is so great that they probably won’t be on the road ever again.”
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