BENTON — When Saline County sheriff’s deputies arrested Jerrime Mardis last month, they found strongboxes, guns and stolen jewelry in his truck.
Within a few days, the department connected him to at least 13 burglaries, partially with the help of pawnshop records.
Less than half of 1 percent of the items pawned or sold at pawnshops are stolen, according to the National Pawnbrokers Association. But it’s been a quick way for thieves to get rid of stolen goods, police say.
So law-enforcement officials throughout the country are turning to online tools and the cooperation of pawnshops to help return stolen items to their rightful owners and increase the ability to catch thieves.
A growing number of cities and counties are signing up for a national database, and several high-profile crimes have been solved using the new technology.
In June, authorities outside Tacoma, Wash., say they solved a murder case when the three men accused of the crime sold a ring stolen during the murder to a pawnshop in California.
The men answered an online ad for a ring and, when the seller opened the door, a fight broke out and the man selling the ring was killed. The robbers fled with his wife’s wedding ring. The victim’s family was able to identify the men who sold the ring.
More than 80 municipalities in Arkansas - including Arkadelphia, Hot Springs and Little Rock - are now registered to use an online pawnshop database kept by the company LeadsOnline, according to company representatives.
Earlier this month, the Saline County Quorum Court passed an ordinance requiring all pawnshops in the county to register information with LeadsOnline about the sellers and items they buy.
The Quorum Court started looking at the ordinance at the urging of the Saline County sheriff’s office, which had already subscribed to the online service, said Saline County Judge Lanny Fite. The ordinance requires pawnshops to register information about items pawned and sold and closes what Lt.Jason Ballard with the Saline County sheriff’s office said was a potential loophole in the state’s pawnshop reporting laws.
“The law requires the shops to list all items that are pawned to them, but doesn’t specifically cover items that are outright sold to them,” Ballard said. “It’s a technicality, but we want to make sure to close that loophole. A lot of communities in the area are passing similar ordinances to close it as well.
“We just want to make sure that victims of theft have a chance to get back the items that were taken from them.It’s becoming more common for people to pawn cars, computers, four-wheelers and big items like that.”
State law already required pawnshops to turn in written tickets to local police departments for items that were pawned to them. The tickets were often harder to deal with because they’d have to be picked up in person.
There was more chance of errors and, once the tickets were correctly entered into crime databases of stolen goods, it could be two or three weeks from when the sale actually happened.
Some departments have been diligent about using the tickets, but the time frame can still be several days with even the most expedited efforts. Law-enforcement officials said the database offers a benefit in that the information about the sellers and the goods becomes instantaneous and can be cross-referenced by police departments across the country.
Saline County deputies arrested Mardis, 27, of Little Rock during investigation of a Benton home burglary. Because of the unusual amount of items in his truck, they ran his driver’s license at local pawnshops and found several items that had been reported stolen.
The online system isn’t foolproof because some items are hard to track. Other times, a thief might immediately sell an item before its owner has reported it as stolen.
USING THE INTERNET
An amendment to the Arkansas pawnshop law passed in 2007 gave cities and counties the ability to require, by ordinance, that pawnshops log sales in the online programs.
LeadsOnline, the most popular service, is used by the majority of communities in the state that have passed laws requiring the online tools, possibly because many departments are familiar with the company because of other online crime databases it keeps, including a scrapyard and metal-sales database.
That database has helped several departments find and return stolen copper, from wiring to cemetery supplies - a crime that has increased in recent years as the economy has declined.
The pawn-tracking system is free for pawnshop owners. It usually works with the cash register, meaning as the item is being sold, pawnshop owners can quickly enter information, including the driver’s license number of the seller, into the register and the information becomes available in the database.
Police departments and sheriffs’ offices have to pay a subscription fee to the service for access to the database, company officials said.
Ballard said detectives don’t assume that sellers who pawn stolen goods are the thieves who originally took the items, but facing theft charges, people are often willing to say where they got the items and police can use that information to solve the original burglaries.
In the case of Mardis, because authorities found so much stolen property in his car, police were able to connect him directly to 13 burglaries, but also charged him with four counts of receiving stolen property, again thanks to the pawnshop records.
The cities of Benton and Bryant in Saline County passed their own ordinances in the past two years to require pawnshops to use the database.
PAWNSHOP BUSINESSES
Sue Willard, who owns Sue’s Pawn Shop in Benton, said the system has been easy to use and has several benefits for her business.
“We wish the whole country would use it, that’s what I think should happen,” she said. “Before, we had to hold things for 15 days if the police didn’t come pick up the slips. Now, after seven days, I can put the stuff out for sale if someone doesn’t return to buy it back. It’s freed up a lot of space for us.”
Willard said pawnshop owners don’t want to buy stolen goods because they could lose their money if the sellers aren’t caught and the items are put on hold by police. She said many people have a misconception about pawnshops being a place where stolen goods are bought and sold, when other stores like secondhand shops or auctions often don’t require the same kinds of information from sellers.
“At least once a day we have someone come in and look for something that’s been stolen. We don’t want stolen merchandise. That’s a hassle, and it’s money out of my pocket,” she said.
The Saline County ordinance includes a $100 fine for owners who don’t register an item on the database, but Ballard of the sheriff’s office said the point isn’t to punish pawnshops.
“We don’t want to shut them down. We’re not against pawnshops,” he said. “We need their help and compliance on this. There’s no reason not to do it. It’s free. It’s easy to use. It’ll help us tremendously and keep them in compliance.”
Arkansas, Pages 7 on 11/29/2010