CLEVELAND — On Monday night, Cleveland City Council unanimously supported and approved a resolution urging Mayor Justin M. Bibb's administration to file a lawsuit against Hyundai and Kia. The goal of a lawsuit would be "to recover costs incurred by the City associated with the rash of thefts of stolen vehicles."
The measure, introduced by Ward 13 Councilman Kris Harsh one week ago, sites a disproportionate amount of thefts of these two specific vehicle brands, specifically Kias and Hyundais manufactured between 2015 and 2021. The resolution says such cars are not equipped with "industry-standard features" to prevent thefts.
"Every single city councilperson has got people in their ward who lost cars and had cars stolen because of this manufacturer's defect," Harsh told 3News after the resolution passed, "so we all agree this is something the mayor should take up."
Council President Blaine A. Griffin echoed that sentiment, adding he has "every indication" the community will be hearing from the city "within a week" about action they hope to take.
"It's unacceptable, and it's the reason why we have to take explicit action from the city in order to try to intervene on behalf of the citizens and to recoup our precious resources that we spent to address these car thefts," Blaine said of the support behind the resolution.
Blaine and Harsh say these car thefts have impacted not only individuals, but the city, which must divert resources from the police department to respond to these robberies.
"The biggest problem that I have is that these are working people, these are people that work hourly jobs, and if they don't have their car in the morning, they're losing real wages. They don't get salaries that can come catch up with them later on," Harsh explained. "So this is impacting people's finances, and I want to see these manufacturers take care of this."
"When you have to divert resources to these car thefts, those are man and woman hours that you take police and beat officers off of their regular beat, because now they're responding to these cases of stolen cars," Griffin mentioned. "You also have to dilute the regular patrol and you have to dilute some of the other specialized units that we have, and we know that we're struggling to make sure that all of our specialized units are staffed."
According to data from the Cleveland Division of Police, Kias and Hyundais alone accounted for 38% of the city's nearly 5,000 car thefts in 2022. Looking at January of 2023, the only month of data provided by Cleveland police for this year so far, Kias and Hyundais make up a whopping 62% of vehicle thefts.
Harsh says a lawsuit would have three targets:
- A recall so manufacturers fix the issues in these cars
- Compensation for car owners who've paid out of pocket for repairs
- Compensation for damages for the city
"The problem will be solved when people that own Kias and Hyundais no longer have to worry about them being stolen every single night," Harsh said. "The problem will be solved when they've got their damages recovered from having to fix these cars, and the problem will be solved when the manufacturers themselves put in the anti-theft devices that can prevent this from happening in the future."
On Monday afternoon, WKYC received notice that the mayor, law director, deputy police chief, and Harsh will be holding a press conference to discuss stolen cars and what the city is doing to combat the issue. Columbus has already filed a similar lawsuit, among other cities.