Car Thieves Pull a Fast One on Dealership Lot

A pair of car thieves traded down from the new luxury import sedan they were driving for a used Ford Focus – stealing it off a dealer's lot in broad daylight and right in front its owners.

At 4:15 p.m. April 29, a manager at Uptown Motors, 2111 N. Mayfair Rd., reported the theft and his own pursuit of the thieves, in company with one of his salesman.

The manager told police the 2008 Focus had just been cleaned, so it was sitting out on the lot with its doors open and the keys in the ignition. He was inside the dealership at about 4 p.m. when he and his salesman saw a silver Audi pull up next to the Focus.

Both described a woman with a ponytail at the wheel of the Audi – which would also prove to have been stolen – and said a man jumped out the passenger side, jumped into the Ford, and both sped off the lot going south on Mayfair.

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The manager said he and the salesman ran to another car and took off after the pair. When they got to Blue Mound Road, they spotted both cars stopped in the left turn lane. Before they could maneuver to get behind them, the light changed and the thieves headed east on Blue Mound.

Their pursuers managed to cut over onto Blue Mound themselves and followed again until the Audi and the Ford both made a hard left through a red light at 92nd Street. That, they told police, was the last they saw of them.

Another driver called police about the pair of thieves because of their reckless driving.

The police report did not say just when the dealership employees called police, but it appeared that they may not have done so until after they had given up their own chase and possibly until they returned.

The Audi, a 2013 A4 model, was found undamaged at 5:17 a.m. in the 3200 block of Juneau Avenue in Milwaukee, and turned back over to its owner. A search for the Focus covered a 24-square-block area surrounding that location, but at last report, it was still missing.