In what has to be one of the more bizarre crime stories we’ve heard lately, an Upstate New York teen ended up in custody after stealing a marked New York State Police patrol vehicle.
It all started in the early hours of Wednesday, November 5th. Around 5 AM, troopers from the New York State Police in Oneonta were called to Accurate Auto and Truck Repair in Davenport after a burglary was reported.
The shop had been broken into overnight. Among the items taken? A State Police patrol car that had been in the shop for routine service. Luckily, no weapons were inside the vehicle at the time, but a patrol car going missing is enough to get any officer’s heart racing.
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Just an hour later, the chase—or rather, the recovery—ended. The stolen cruiser was spotted on Interstate 90 in the town of Schodack, in Rensselaer County. Troopers swooped in and found an 18-year-old inside the vehicle and took him into custody.
Which raises the obvious question: what went wrong with the getaway plan? Answer: GPS. These days, patrol cars are tracked, so the “steal it and vanish” idea runs headfirst into a digital breadcrumb trail. In short, the vehicle gave itself away.
The man was arraigned and charged with Criminal Possession of Stolen Property in the Third Degree. But that wasn’t the end of it. Investigators later added charges of Burglary in the Third Degree and Grand Larceny in the Third Degree.
The investigation is still ongoing, and authorities haven’t released further details. But one thing’s for sure: real-life capers don’t look like the movies — they look like someone stealing a car that calls the cops on them.
For anyone tempted by midnight mischief: if the vehicle’s got a tracker, it’s less “Ocean’s Eleven” and more “caught on the first exit.”
Gallery Credit: Credit – Polly McAdams

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