Elk Grove police are leaving gifts at the door: bait packages to catch thieves

Potential Elk Grove porch pirates have received their fair warning: Police are starting to crack down on package theft.

The Elk Grove Police Department has started to use undercover “bait package” deployments to catch thieves, the department said Monday on Facebook.

The announcement went semi-viral on Facebook, with users sharing the announcement more than 2,100 times in less than a day.

Elk Grove residents on social media seemed very supportive of the plan, but at least one Facebook commenter wondered: Why give would-be thieves a heads-up about the undercover program?

The Police Department responded to that user, “The message serves two purposes; inform our community of our efforts to combat the issue and to deter the thieves from doing it in (Elk Grove).”

There is, of course, no advance warning about what the bait packages will look like or how they’ll be assigned and placed at front porches.

The El Dorado County Sheriff’s Office launched its own bait program last year in November, as did the Rancho Cordova Police Department. Package theft peaks around the holiday season, when there’s a higher-than-average amount of online orders placed.

Northern California residents have expressed a significant amount of concern (as measured by Google searches) about package thefts, according to a recent study. San Francisco (No. 1), Oakland and Sacramento all ranked in the Top 10 by that metric.

Theft deterrents range from more conventional methods, like asking a trustworthy neighbor to keep an eye on your door, to programs like Amazon Key — a controversial service that would allow delivery drivers right into your home or even the trunk of your car.

This story was originally published December 11, 2018 at 11:49 AM.