The apartment complex where El Paso County Sheriff’s Deputy Micah Flick was killed during an attempted auto-theft arrest is at the heart of a city neighborhood most afflicted by motor vehicle thefts in 2016, a Gazette analysis of the latest full year for which census data was available.
Overall, there was a 23 percent jump in car theft in 2016 from 2015, leading to a more robust effort by the Beat Auto Theft Through Law Enforcement, or BATTLE, task force. The group of officers was designed to reduce thefts, catch prolific offenders and eliminate crime rings. Funding for the task force doubled to $1.2 million that year, increasing again this year to $1.4 million, grant applications show.
Source: The Gazette – CO. Springs
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