Call Kurtis: My Car Was Vandalized; Why Won't RT Take My Report?

CITRUS HEIGHTS (CBS13) — Coming home from a long day at work, Gerry Vincent of Citrus Heights found his vehicle vandalized.

"You start fuming inside because something is wrong," Gerry said.

The door was jimmied open. Inside the car, Gerry found papers tossed everywhere.

"It looked like a bomb had gone off." He said.

A Regional Transit rider for more than 25 years, this was a first for Gerry.

"I felt violated," he said.

He said he flagged down an RT Security Guard to take a report.

"And he says 'Oh no, we don't take reports.'"

When Gerry called RT, he said the person who answered told him to go online to RT's web page, under the police services section, and file a crime report.

"You go to their webpage at their direction and there's no place to report the crime." Gerry said.

He's right. We also looked on RT's website under the Police Services section there was no crime report. In fact, we scoured the entire website looking for a crime report and came up empty.

"In this case Mr. Vincent has brought to our attention some difficulties within our website," said Sergeant Norm Leong, who is charge of RT's Police Services.

He admitted areas of RT's website can be confusing.

"We have failures if people aren't able to make reports," Sgt. Leong said.

After we got involved, Sgt. Leong acknowledged retraining is needed at RT's call center, and has made recommended RT make changes to its website.

"It could just be a one liner that says if you're a victim of a crime, report it here." He said.

And, that's all Gerry wanted.

"I think it's the least they can do, and I don't think it takes that much of an effort." Gerry said.

RT made changes to its website, including the phone number for RT Police Services in a number of new locations.

Finally, almost two weeks after the break-in, Gerry was able to file a police report.

There is no telling whether the crime would have been investigated if a report had been taken right away – considering nothing of value was stolen.
Often you need a police report if you want to file a claim with your insurance.
So what should you do if you're a victim of a crime at one of RT's Park and Ride locations or trains?

You can call RT Police Services and they may be able to send an RT police officer out to you, or you can report it to the local police where the crime occurred.