Arapahoe County Sheriff’s Office deputies have seen a significant decrease in auto theft cases and an increase in arrests since the office created a special team of SWAT members who crack down on cases.

The Special Response Team, or SRT, is made up of eight SWAT team members who do proactive car theft enforcement, according to the sheriff’s office. Arapahoe County Sheriff’s Office’s newsletter attributed the decline in thefts to the team, which they said have cracked down on enforcement.

Between 2023 and 2024, the number of motor vehicle thefts reported to the Arapahoe County Sheriff’s Office dropped from 949 to 687, while the number of motor vehicle theft arrests more than doubled, from 40 to 84, according to numbers from a sheriff’s office spokesperson.

Of the completed motor vehicle theft cases, 832 of the cars were recovered in 2023 and 532 were recovered in 2024.

Sgt. Nick Rodriguez, who was the first assigned to the team when it was created in 2021, said the county “desperately needed it.”

While the team doesn’t only respond to car theft cases, it is one of their focuses, he said in the office’s newsletter.

Technology, such as license plate readers, has also been vital to the decline in cases, according to Arapahoe County Sheriff’s Office spokesperson Ginger Delgado. Their Flock cameras are positioned around Arapahoe County to help deputies track down cars and understand patterns of car thieves.

Other efforts that have helped bring down the number of cases are proactive enforcement, surveillance, and deputies following stolen vehicles, Delgado said.

The newsletter added that the importance of cracking down on car theft extends beyond the theft itself.

“These car thieves are robbing people, shooting people, stealing, burglarizing, carjacking, you name it,” Rodriguez said in the newsletter. “Ninety percent of the time, there’s either guns or drugs or fentanyl and they’re ruining people’s cars.”

State lawmakers have also cracked down on auto theft recently, passing a law in 2023 that ties the penalty for stealing a car to behavior rather than the car’s value.

Prior to the law, the severity of criminal offenses for auto thefts depended on the value of the stolen vehicle — ranging from a Class 1 misdemeanor for a car worth $2,000 or less to a Class 3 felony for a car worth $100,000 or more.

In addition to removing that value-based approach, the new law also stiffened the penalties for repeat offenders: A person who had two prior convictions now faces a first degree motor vehicle theft, a Class 3 felony, while a person who steals a car that is altered or damaged faces a Class 4 felony.

State data showed a sharp reduction in car theft in the first four months of 2024, and the new law — along with funding for the Colorado Auto Theft Prevention Authority, renewed focus by local governments and public vigilance — has been key in curbing vehicle theft by nearly half since 2022, officials said.

The state reported 8,109 car thefts or roughly 67 cars stolen per day from January to April. During the same time last year, 11,643 were reported stolen.

In 2022, the figure was even higher at 14,698.

Denver Gazette’s Luige del Puerto and Thelma Grimes contributed to this report.