While looking though some Arlington county RSS feeds I came across an entry titled “Free VIN Etching Event” where the entirety of the body was “The Arlington County Police Dept. and the Virginia State Police HEAT Program are sponsoring an auto theft deterrence event. Motorists can get their Vehicle Identification Number (VIN) etched into their exterior windows for free. Motorcyclists are welcome as well.” Well, okay – when? Where?
Unfortunately if you add one of the Arlington calendar RSS feeds you get links in your reader that don’t provide per-event calendar links – clicking this one just takes me to http://www.arlingtonva.us/police which isn’t much help. So I use the search box and find this story about last year’s October 21st event. I’m about to click away and keep searching when I notice this line midway down, emphasis mine.
101 vehicles were VIN-etched in about 4 hours, and one stolen car was recovered.
Wait – a stolen car was recovered? At a VIN etching event? Unless you can think of another interpretation I’m assuming this means someone brought in a car to be etched that was, in fact, stolen. I’ve dropped a mail to the police media representative attached to this year’s event to ask and I’ll let you know what he says. In any case, if you stole your current ride I’d suggest you skip the event.
If you’re not driving a stolen hooptie, this year’s event is scheduled for 10a – 2p on November 3 at the Arlington Assembly of God Church, 4501 N. Pershing Drive, Arlington VA.
This post appeared in its original form at DC Metblogs