In Colton, California, parking enforcement officer Bill Harring usually spends his mornings in a white city pickup, cruising neighborhood streets for blocked driveways and expired meters. On August 6, though, he spotted something that didn’t belong: a massive, unattended tractor-trailer stacked with all different cars, parked on the side of Valley Boulevard. No driver. No movement. Just sitting there.
Harring, an 82-year-old Vietnam War veteran who has spent 26 years in parking enforcement, said he immediately felt something was wrong
That gut instinct sent him to check the cab and run the truck’s plates from his mobile terminal. What came back confirmed his suspicions: stolen. Not just the big rig, but every single car and truck riding on its trailer.
By the time officers tallied the find, they had recovered 10 stolen vehicles worth more than $330,000, NBC 5 shared.
Police later confirmed the cars had been taken from a small Northern California town and were likely bound for the black market, where they would have been stripped for parts
Harring’s quick call stopped the operation cold before a single wrench could turn.
Colton Police Chief Anthony Vega called it the largest vehicle recovery of Harring’s career, though the officer brushed off the praise. He explained that he has towed plenty of cars over the years and considered it just another day on the job…