There are dozens of stories about how police departments seize cool cars and place them into the agency’s fleet, adorning them with a police livery, sirens, lights, and all of the other equipment cop cars use. It’s a fun PR stunt that wins points from the public, and usually results in cars plucked straight out of Need for Speed: Most Wanted.
When that doesn’t happen, the cars are either held for a set period of time before being relinquished back to the owner (usually with a fine). If the owner doesn’t want to pay the fines and the storage fees, it’s sold at auction. In the case of this Dodge Durango SRT Hellcat, noticed by our friends at The Drive, neither of those things happened. Instead, the super-SUV was crushed into a pancake to score points with the media and the public.
The Louisville Metro Police Department held a livestream on Facebook on Wednesday to show off the Durango’s demise, complete with a press conference involving the city’s police chief, Paul Humphrey, and the city’s mayor, Craig Greenburg.
The supercharged, V8-powered SUV was seized after the owner was caught allegedly street racing last year. Like most of these stunts, this one was angled as a deterrent to keep people from street racing. An anti-street-racing ordinance signed into law back in 2022 allows Louisville police to hold onto seized cars for up to six months, along with a $1,000 fine. From the livestream:
We want this to be symbolic to people who are out here doing the street racing, understanding that we will take your car.
[…]
So far, we’ve seized 52 cars do date for this year, and last year we seized 70 total, and 62 in 2023. We’ve seized the total of 167 cars under this [ordinance].
Humphrey says of the cars seized under this ordinance, the department has auctioned four so far. He also says he’d have loved to have the car in the fleet:
Once the car is released, the owner has 45 days to come and claim it. And so when they don’t, we ultimately take possession of those cars and they’re put up for auction, so that’s revenue returned back to the police department, to the city to do the work that we need to do. I would have loved to throw this car in the fleet if it were legal.
The reason this Hellcat wasn’t legal? Well, it was actually several Hellcats spliced together, according to the police. From Humphrey’s speech:
This car is pieced together from several different stolen cars. The engine, the frame, the body, they’re all from different cars, and so for that reason, this car is not street legal and cannot be put back out on the street.
While it’s tough to tell from the outside, a video published to YouTube of the department crushing the Hellcat shows the engine bay, which seems to be painted an entirely different color than the exterior body panels.
Still, I have some questions. Why not just resell the entire car to a dismantler? This way, any proceeds could’ve gone to the department, or even better, the rightful owners of those parts (or their insurance companies). Humphrey says it wasn’t worth the agency’s time:
We did consider how to sell some of those parts, but because of the nature of the way that car is assembled, that’s not going to be a fiscally responsible avenue.
I also think the Metro Police could’ve just finagled the Kentucky DMV to give them a plate for this Hellcat. While there are some very real safety concerns regarding cut-together cars like this, it’s still a running, driving vehicle. Surely the department could’ve found some use for it, right? Maybe as a low-speed towing machine? Or as some sort of training tool for new officers. Firefighters always need cars to practice on for stuff like car fires or extracting injured occupants.
I don’t know, crushing a perfectly useful SUV for any reason just doesn’t sit right with me. So much potential, wasted.
(Correction: A previous version of the story misspelled Paul Humphrey’s name.)
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I think the issue would have been dealing with different insurers over who owned this thing so it was easier to crush – plus they can use the video showing people what happens if you street race
You have the insurance to worry about and the questionable quality of work from a frankentruck built by crooks. Liability alone meant they had to crush it. The only thing I would change is that they shouldn’t have said why they couldn’t keep or sell it. Let the street racers think this was a perfectly good vehicle that they crushed out of spite.
The way these f’in things are driven around Detroit makes me wish they’d all end up in crushers with the drivers still inside. Same with their partner in chaos the Grand Cherokee.
(also some of those that wield 710 horses are the same that work forces)
so if they are seizing more cars every year, how is this improving the situation? I’d expect the number of seized cars to be down if this was an effective deterrent.
It just looks like something is being done, even though it really doesn’t do anything
In fact none of the cars crushed has ever been a repeat offender. Take the cars crush them and leave the offender with a loan to pay but no car. Pretty effective. Zero recidivism if the car is destroyed
Well the unchecked animal propagation means more fing idiots every year
I don’t think seizing people’s property as their own is winning public support for cops much anymore. At least in general; in this case, a franken-car of stolen bits? Yeah crush that thing.
One Stellantis vehicle crushed into a small cube, many many more to go…
A lot of the bigger departments got rid of their pr fleets they still had to maintain them and often assigned an officer to do handle them. The safety systems on that had to be compromised where cruisers are about the safest things out there. Some departments had motorcycle cops drive the pr fleet because they had increased insurance policies.
I always cry a little when I see a nice one go to the crusher. At the same time, I am firmly against police keeping any seized vehicle, ever. This just incentivizes policing for profit which this country is already filled to the brim with.
As someone that used to spend a decent bit of time in louisville, they already have plenty of fast undercovers, including a charger heckkitty, that the liability risk of putting this one into the fleet doesn’t make sense. If you’re ever on I71, I64, I65, 265 or 264 in Louisville watch out for the red S550.2 Mustang GT California Special that will try to bait you into a race.
And if you’re on the Indiana side, there’s a blue Mustang to keep an eye out for, though I don’t know what generation.
I came across some Hong Kong highway patrol videos on YouTube. Popo there uses late model BMW 5 Series wagon as unmarked patrol cars. They offer plenty of go but would blend in seamlessly with traffic.
All the drivers in the know would act like sheep whenever a new-ish 5-er wagon is nearby.
I always wonder if drivers of Ford Explorers with the base-trim grille wonder why I’m driving so nervously around them…
Extra bonus if the Explorer is:
Police-spec Explorers are identifiable by the lack of roof rails. Source: my sister bought police vehicles for a local department.
You can spec the current gen Explorer ST without them. my neighbor has one and used FORSCAN to change the DRLs to yellow too. All of the PPVs have yellow DRLs
Oh, they know. For many people with them that is a significant reason for them to get that particular car.
Yeah, I guess it depends on the personality. Probably most of us would never want to drive a car that’ll make everyone in front of us drive slow, but I guess I can see the appeal for safety-minded people who aren’t in a rush!
What started as a story about a seized Hellcat being crushed for publicity devolved into a story of evidence of many stolen cars potentially haphazardly assembled being disposed of in the most fiscally responsible way. I guess Hellcat Crushed was always going to be clickbaity but …
100%. I feel like the headline was going for a ragebaity lean, but when I read whole car was a chop job of stolen parts, I was like “Oh, well that makes sense. Carry on.”
It’s too much liability. If a cop gets in an accident in this thing (technically a piece of evidence from a crime that also isn’t really street legal) the cop and the union are gonna sue the city. You can’t sell it to the public or part it out to the public because of the stolen parts (unless you want to figure out what’s stolen and what isn’t, good luck with that). Maybe they could’ve used it for parts for the fleet, but I don’t know if they run Durangos, so that idea could be useless. They could’ve done all this unceremoniously, but I’m sure the mayor was looking forward to this field day.
I live in Louisville (well, right across the river) and street takeovers have definitely been a problem. There was one confirmed case of one hindering an emergency vehicle. That said, I have no idea why they didn’t just auction the thing off, they could donate the money to charity or something. LMPD doesn’t exactly have the greatest reputation around here.
Edited because I’ve been sick, taking cough and cold meds, and missed the details about it being built from stolen parts. Honestly crushing it is probably easier than the questionable legality of trying to sell the parts.
What a stupid wasteful stunt. I get that they probably couldn’t have sold or even registered a frankencar, but still there would have been some parts value. One more example of the limited intellect of member of law enforcement.
Remember when it was all the rage for people to do publicity stunts smashing up import cars back in the 70’s? Somebody still bought the car after all, so it’s not like Toyota or whoever didn’t get the sale.
So much of what governments (small and large) talk about or show in their social media platforms is purely performative in nature. This is a great example of there being other options that would have resulted in some recovering of value, but it’s more fun (and click bait) to do stuff like this.
Exactly. This doesn’t really fix the problem. That involves thinking, and thinking is hard
Crushing it was the right thing to do. They should have made the owner watch. And a bunch of police officers standing around laughing and drinking the tears of the “street racer”. Then put him in jail so he thinks twice next time.
That doesn’t fix the real problem either
I do not know of any state that will allow a vehicle to be registered that has different VIN numbers on the same chassis. This may not even be a real hellcat. We would not even be discussing this if it was just a regular Durango that had a hellcat engine put into it. I see no problem having it crushed.
“The engine, the frame, the body, they’re all from different cars, and so for that reason, this car is not street legal and cannot be put back out on the street.”
Looks at my truck…. Hmm….
Ship of Thesus?
“Why not just resell the entire car to a dismantler? This way, any proceeds could’ve gone to the department, or even better, the rightful owners of those parts (or their insurance companies). Humphrey says it wasn’t worth the agency’s time:
We did consider how to sell some of those parts, but because of the nature of the way that car is assembled, that’s not going to be a fiscally responsible avenue.”
That’s not what was asked Mr Humphrey. The whole point of selling the car to a dismantler means figuring out how to sell those parts in a fiscally responsible way becomes the dismantler’s problem, not yours.
I wonder if it’s a liability thing. I don’t know much about the dismantling industry but I’d be a bit nervous this thing would somehow end up back on the street, or on a boat headed to another country.
Maybe, but surely there’s better ways to be sure those things don’t happen than nuking it from orbit.
maybe check if Elon needs another payload analog to put in LEO
But it’s a Frankenstein of stolen parts. A reputable dismantler wouldn’t touch this with a 10′ pole, and police don’t want to sell it to an irreputable dismantler.
Crushing was the right call here. It’s just too much legal liability for anybody.
Why wouldn’t a dismantler buy a car like that if the seller is the police department? Would any LEO or DA really hazard a venture into that quagmire of prosecutorial failure?
The “Stolen Parts” are the problem. Every part on the vehicle with a VIN has been registered as stolen, which are a lot of them. Once you eliminate the stolen parts, there is little left to be sold. Most of this was going to get crushed regardless.
As for putting it into service, safety is also an issue, if this were to fail while being driven and caused someone to get hurt, the police department would be incredibly liable to damages because of it. Especially if any frame modification was done by the crooks who assembled this thing.
Theft recovered and crash damaged, even badly crash damaged vehicles are bought and sold at auction every day as parts cars or cars to be rebuilt and retitled:
https://sca.auction/en/search/type-cars/damage-theft
https://www.copart.com/vehicle-search-featured/used/recoveredthefts?displayStr=Recovered%20Thefts&from=%2FvehicleFinder&qId=5402500f-33da-4e47-b13d-4497ed1d06dc-1758227764242
https://abetter.bid/en/car-finder/type-automobiles/sale-type-theft-recover
Entire cars yes, also the laws vary incredibly state by state..
Given that this was multiple VINs, all from different vehicles, I think that makes it more difficult, and flagging them as “Recovered” and putting it back on the road may wash the rest of the parts under that VIN.
Perhaps.
Police chief Paul Phumphery presses perfectly powerful piece of iron into pulpy pile of pips.
Pfilm at pheleven.
I immediately googled him because “Paul Phumphery” is just too good to be true.
And it is. I hope they don’t correct that typo.
Someone got their settings stuck on Pontiac Pthursday.
AAAnd, street racing still happens despite this.
Yeah, I thought about that too. As if people who street race are also rational thinkers. Actually, they might be, and they understand the odds of this happening to their ride are likely very low.
This is the death penalty and i doubt people who commit crimes of passion think of the consequences first
Well in this context they were racing a vehicle built from multiple stolen vehicles, so perhaps they aren’t the MOST rational…
NYC is great for this. I was once pulled over by a yellow taxi.
“So far, we’ve seized 52 cars do date for this year, and last year we seized 70 total, and 62 in 2023.”
That’s apparently not working. On track for 73 this year, so more every year since the ordinance went into effect. I’m not saying that crushing the cars is wrong. Maybe releasing them after 45 days is wrong. How many cars have been seized more than once?
Also, the car in this article was spliced together from 7 different stolen cars. What steps are they taking to identify the thieves? Oh, the
ownerdriver of the car had his car crushed, case closed.As any money gained from the sale of these vehicles goes to the police department, there is a big incentive to seize more cars every year. Has nothing to do with the effectiveness of the law.
I am also of the opinion that property seizure laws encourage abuse and are far too permissive. But keep in mind that in this case, they only keep the ones that the owners don’t redeem. Also, as long as they are only seizing cars from street races, the monetary incentive doesn’t change the fact that there are still plenty of cars to seize. I’m not siding with the police here; I think they are doing the minimum to close cases while ignoring the larger problem of apparently rampant vehicle theft. Then they make a big deal of crushing a car to somehow create “good will”.
Not sure that street racing or takeovers differ much. Without any evidence, i would guess the cops aren’t parsing the numbers. Math is for suckers. Outrage is easy. Either way, see my other comments, this “deterrence “ doesn’t appear to be working
Police seize cars for many reasons. Cars that are driven without proper registration are impounded until the owner can register the vehicle. Often, they just don’t come back for it.
Anecdote: I donated a car. Months later, I received a call that :my car” was at an impound lot. The charity never changed the title, nor did the auction buyer. I didn’t want the car in June, why would I pay to get it back in April?
!00% this.
FWIW This was likely confiscated at a Street Takeover and not an actual street race. The general public doesn’t know how to differentiate the two. We have been have a major spike in those here since 2023 since people want the social media clout.
Yeah, I misspoke when I said street race below. Either way, both are problems, at least in my opinion.
It took a bit long into the article before the real information, that the car was cobbled from many stolen parts, was mentioned.
I can see where auctioning off the stolen parts doesn’t make sense, as it would be legally supporting the resale and implementation of stolen parts.
And keeping it might be a liability. If someone threw this together in his shed out of 7 cars, are you sure he did a good job? Want to find out during a high speed pursuit?
Exactly. How much time do you think that guy spent making sure the airbag systems in his franken-car are all working properly? Along with every other part of the car that isn’t necessary for it to go real fast.
I don’t think that this article is up to the Autopian’s usual, high standards. I wouldn’t have bothered to read this article if it were clear from the beginning that the car was crushed because it was cobbled together from stolen parts. Clickbait.
Who in hell cares. It’d still be a piece of shit even if it wasn’t Frankenstein’d together with stolen parts from 12 different cars. The world is a better place.
Interesting that they “crushed” it just enough to cave in the roof but not damage the drivetrain. Someone took that home.
Hell(cat) yeah baby! Next year the police chief’s Cruiser is a LOT faster.
I think it’s flattened enough to stack for delivery to the shredder.
Did they put the driver in the car before they crushed it?