Flashing lights stolen from a breath test site are valued at "quite a few hundreds of dollars”.
PORTLAND police are a little in the dark after an opportunistic crook stole two strobe lights from a preliminary breath testing site.
Detective Acting Sergeant Jason von Tunk, of the Portland police crime investigation unit, said a single Portland highway patrol officer was manning a PBT site at the intersection of Cliff and Glenelg streets last Friday night about 10pm when he jumped in his car to chase a motorist.
“A car was driven through the site, the officer chased that car and performed a PBT, which returned a negative reading, and when he returned to the PBT site the two sets of red and blue strobe lights were missing,” he said.
“The strobe lights are a warning that a site is being manned by police ... A search of the immediate area was undertaken but the two sets of lights were not located.”
Detective Acting Sergeant von Tunk said each set of flashing lights was valued at “quite a few hundreds of dollars”.
“They can’t be used for anything else other than warning lights, not even for a disco. We’re appealing to the public for assistance or to help us locate the lights.”
Hamilton detectives are also on the move in the hunt for a missing five-speed gearbox.
Detective Acting Sergeant Mark James, of the Hamilton police crime investigation unit, said the manual gearbox — from an early 1990s Holden VP model — was stolen from a wreckers in Hamilton’s Port Fairy Road during the weekend and was not common. It was valued at $450.
