WESTFIELD – Police officers need to develop a facility to observe and remember a wide variety of vehicular registration plates in their never-ending efforts to find stolen vehicles or to spot suspects associated with a vehicle. Some plates are, no doubt, easier to remember than others.
Officer John Parrish spotted one that he probably had no difficulty remembering on Monday and knew right away that something was amiss since he had seen the plate for decades attached to his father’s vehicle.
When he saw the familiar plate attached to the front of a Ford pickup on Clay Hill, he knew he was going to stop the truck.
When the pickup pulled over, Parrish approached the operator who immediately apologized and admitted that he had stolen the plates on the truck from a vehicle which had been parked at an apartment complex he had been staying at.
Parish called his father and learned that he had not known that the plates were missing but looked and confirmed that they were gone.
Parrish reports that the suspect said that he has no money and desperation made him steal the plates.
Parrish filed a criminal complaint against the driver for larceny and for illegally attaching plates.
The pickup truck was towed to the police impound yard.
