Thieves ride them, hide them. He finds them

A statewide antitheft organization honors a St. Petersburg officer for recovering stolen vehicles.

[Times photo: Fred Victorin] St. Petersburg police Officer Dave Horner checks the back of a stolen pickup truck for fingerprints back in May. So far this year, Horner has found 257 stolen vehicles.

By LEANORA MINAI, Times Staff Writer
© St. Petersburg Times
published September 18, 2002

TAMPA -- Every morning, St. Petersburg police Officer Dave Horner hits the street with two Mountain Dews, a notebook containing descriptions of each stolen car, and of course, his binoculars.

Between 911 calls, he scours alleys and streets for stray-looking cars, typing tag numbers into a squad car laptop.

His mission? Finding stolen vehicles in St. Petersburg. So far this year his haul is 257, just 14 cars shy of his record last year. For his efforts, a statewide organization that develops projects to prevent auto theft across the state gave Horner an award Tuesday.

"Rarely a day goes by when Officer Horner does not recover at least one stolen vehicle," John Czernis, chief of investigations for the Florida Highway Patrol, told 220 law enforcement officers gathered during a luncheon ceremony for the Florida Anti-Car Theft Committee at the Wyndham Harbour Island Hotel.

Horner

Horner, known as "Tag Man" on the street, glowed and smiled as he accepted a plaque and congratulations. Twice in his 26 years with the St. Petersburg Police Department he was nominated by his peers for Officer of the Year, but he never won.

This time he came out on top. He faced contenders from the Miami-Dade Police Department to the Jacksonville Sheriff's Office.

"I'm just awed over the whole thing," said Horner, 50. "It's the first big thing that's ever happened to me in the Police Department."

When Horner isn't working his beat, he's climbing up and down three layers of scaffolding, removing 6,000 pounds of asbestos siding to expose the original siding on his home.

"I've always said, 'Whatever you do, do it to your best ability,' " Horner said.

The committee also gave an award to the Hillsborough County Sheriff's Office. Its nine-member selective enforcement squad got a plaque for recovering 113 stolen cars over 42 days in 2001.

No one told Horner to find stolen cars. It was his personal goal, one he started in 1998, for the challenge and to help victims who need their cars to get to work.

"It's their livelihood," Horner said. "You can't survive without your car."

When he started in 1998, Horner set a target. He wanted to find 1,000 cars by the time he retires in 2005. He is up to 980 cars already.

Now he has to come up with a new number. Maybe 1,500, he said.

"Either the thieves are making it easier for me to find them, or I've just gotten better at what I'm doing," Horner said.

In between emergency calls, Horner drives the streets, typing license tag numbers into a laptop with a connection to a database of cars reported stolen. On a good day, he will find five stolen cars.

"They steal 'em at night. I get them during the day," he said.

His stats are impressive. Last year, the St. Petersburg Police Department recovered 1,600 of its 2,062 stolen cars. Horner was responsible for 271 of them, or 17 percent.

"No other officer even comes close to these numbers," police Chief Chuck Harmon said in Horner's nomination.

As Horner left the awards ceremony Tuesday afternoon, he lamented his time off the street:

"I wasted the whole day already and didn't get any."

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