Tacoma Owner Turns to Facebook to Find His Stolen Truck

Tacoma was gone for more than a month and police had no leads, but social media came to the rescue.

Imagine heading out to your driveway early one morning to find that your Toyota Tacoma had been stolen overnight. That was exactly what happened to Shaun Williams of Anchorage, Alaska, back in early December of 2019. With his truck, the thieves carried away all of the construction and landscaping tools that he uses to make a living, along with a new set of studded snow tires that had had in the bed. He contacted the police as it recommended, but when there were no leads after more than a month, he turned to social media for help.

According to KTVA.com, Williams’ truck was recovered with help from a Facebook group that exists strictly to help locate stolen vehicles in his area. However, his story is full of great information for anyone whose vehicle goes missing.

What To Do

As the original story points out, the first thing to do when your Tacoma or other vehicle is stolen is contact your local police and file a report. They will add it to a database of stolen vehicles that can be accessed by police officers and, in some cases, impound or towing companies. In the case of Williams’ story, his Toyota pickup was added to the statewide list, so if it turns up, other police departments will know that it is stolen. It should be noted that only the registered owner can file a stolen vehicle report.

Williams’ story also points out that if you find your stolen vehicle, you don’t to just jump in it and take off. Once it reported stolen, the police are looking for a vehicle that is being driven by a thief. They don’t know if it is the owner or the thief, so officers will often approach the vehicle with their guns drawn. To avoid that, if you find your Tacoma or some other model, call the police and let them know where it is located.

In the event that the authorities find the vehicle first, they will attempt to contact the owners, but if no one can be reached, the vehicle will be impounded and the owner will have to pay to get it out. That is better than not having your vehicle, in most cases. In the case of Williams’ Tacoma, he waited for more than a month and the police had no leads, so he turned to another alternative for help.

Finding the Tacoma

When the police weren’t providing much help in finding Williams’ Toyota Tacoma, he posted to several Facebook channels seeking help. As it pointed out in the original article, help like this requires pictures of your vehicle and your license plate, which he had on his phone. He shared those pictures to the Alaska Stolen Vehicle Recovery Facebook page and Floyd Hall, who runs that group, spotted the Tacoma within an hour and a half of when the social media posts were made.

The police looked for more than a month, but it took a large crowd of Facebook users less than a few hours to find the stolen Toyota Tacoma. With this in mind, we should all be aware of local pages like that, just in case our vehicles vanish.

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Patrick Rall

"Before I was old enough to walk, my dad was taking me to various types of racing events, from local drag racing to the Daytona 500," says Patrick Rall, a lifetime automotive expert, diehard Dodge fan, and respected auto journalist for over 10 years. "He owned a repair shop and had a variety of performance cars when I was young, but by the time I was 16, he was ready to build me my first drag car – a 1983 Dodge Mirada that ran low 12s. I spent 10 years traveling around the country, racing with my dad by my side. While we live in different areas of the country, my dad still drag races at 80 years old in the car that he built when I was 16 while I race other vehicles, including my 2017 Dodge Challenger SRT Hellcat and my 1972 Dodge Demon 340.

"Although I went to college for accounting, my time in my dad’s shop growing up allowed me the knowledge to spend time working as a mechanic before getting my accounting degree, at which point I worked in the office of a dealership group. While I was working in the accounting world, I continued racing and taking pictures of cars at the track. Over time, I began showing off those pictures online and that led to my writing.

"Ten years ago, I left the accounting world to become a full-time automotive writer and I am living proof that if you love what you do, you will never “work” a day in your life," adds Rall, who has clocked in time as an auto mechanic, longtime drag racer and now automotive journalist who contributes to nearly a dozen popular auto websites dedicated to fellow enthusiasts.

"I love covering the automotive industry and everything involved with the job. I was fortunate to turn my love of the automotive world into a hobby that led to an exciting career, with my past of working as a mechanic and as an accountant in the automotive world provides me with a unique perspective of the industry.

"My experience drag racing for more than 20 years coupled with a newfound interest in road racing over the past decade allows me to push performance cars to their limit, while my role as a horse stable manager gives me vast experience towing and hauling with all of the newest trucks on the market today.

"Being based on Detroit," says Rall, "I never miss the North American International Auto Show, the Woodward Dream Cruise and Roadkill Nights, along with spending plenty of time raising hell on Detroit's Woodward Avenue with the best muscle car crowd in the world.

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