Boy Steals Car, Accidentally Meets Police Back at Scene of Crime

This boy needs a compass. He needs a moral compass, first of all, but also one of the direction-finding variety.

After being pulled over by police in a car he had just stolen and then fleeing on foot from police, he somehow managed to make his way 13 blocks through the night just in time to be spotted by police officers who were interviewing the car's owner back at the scene of the theft.

Sometime around 1:30 a.m. Tuesday, the owner of the car, a resident of the 2100 block of North 64th Street, was awakened by his girlfriend, who said she had heard a noise in the house.

The man found his front door standing open, and looking out his front window, saw two people walking north on 64th. But he did not call police and apparently did not check the home to see if anything was missing – such as the car keys he had left on the kitchen counter. Instead, he went back to bed.

Within half an hour, he was awakened again, this time by Wauwatosa police officers, who asked if he knew the whereabouts of his car or had given anyone permission to use it.

The man stepped out, looked in his driveway and said, "Where's my car?"

The car was in the 2100 block of North 51st Street, where one of the officers had a short time earlier made a traffic stop. The driver had jumped out of the car and run, the officer explained, and the car had been traced to the dumbfounded owner.

As this was being explained, an officer spotted a figure running through a nearby yard. With the area already crawling with patrols, it was a brief matter to surround the area and conduct a yard-by-yard search, which soon turned up a 14-year-old Milwaukee boy hiding under a motor home in the very same block he had started.

The boy was arrested for auto theft and burglary for starters, and his woes were compounded when it was discovered that he had also rifled the unlocked car belonging to the girlfriend of the owner of the stolen car.

He had taken her iPod, headphones, watch, and wallet containing her driver’s license and credit cards. So charges of theft and possession of stolen property were added to his record.

Boy admitted he had also entered another vehicle that night in the same block but had found nothing worth stealing.