Deputies respond to many lockout calls

SCOTT TRUXELL/independent editor

It’s a sinking feeling – knowing you’ve locked your keys in your car by inadvertently leaving them in the ignition, in a cup holder or on the seat. It’s even worse when you’re away from home and nowhere near a spare set of keys.

Unfortunately, that happened to a lot of people in Van Wert County last year.

According to Rodney Smith, Communications Director at the Van Wert County Sheriff’s Office, between January 1-December 31, 2023, deputies responded to 576 calls to help motorists locked out of their vehicles, an average of 1.5 such calls per day. The calls for lockouts appear on the Van Wert County Sheriff’s daily activity log, found on the VW independent’s Statistics page.

For a variety of reasons, including liability, helping with lockouts is a service that few law enforcement agencies offer these days, but the Van Wert County Sheriff’s Office still does, seemingly on a daily basis throughout the county, including inside the Van Wert city limits.

“Unlocking vehicles is a service we provide,” Sheriff Tom Riggenbach said. “Public service is one of many things we do as a Sheriff’s Office. We do prioritize all calls for service that we receive and there will be times we respond right away to a lockout and there are times unfortunately we can’t respond right away. Certain circumstances can affect our decision of how soon we respond to a lockout.”

While deputies are usually able to successfully unlock a vehicle, there are times where it simply doesn’t work.

“We have multiple tools that deputies have to unlock vehicles,” Riggenbach said. “Each tool can’t open every vehicle. We do our best to be able to unlock every vehicle, but there are times we can’t get into a vehicle with the tools we have.”

Riggenbach added if deputies are unsuccessful unlocking the vehicle, they recommend AAA or a local service known to the department that also provides the service and may have different tools. He also said everyone has to sign a release of liability waiver before deputies attempt to unlock the car.

“We try very hard to not cause any damage when we do a lockout,” Riggenbach stated. “However, it can happen.”

If you’re wondering – 2024 began with a lockout. A call came in from the Van Wert city limits at 10:31 p.m. Monday, making it the first such call of the year.