Adventures in Car Thievery

A crime wave in the Southwest Twin Cities reported as only James Lileks can:

We have a car thief operating in our Southwest neighborhood. He can’t drive, which would seem to be an important part of a car thief’s skill set.

On Sunday night he broke into a garage, entered the basement, found the key to the car on a hook – yes, I know, the owners were careless; the key should be kept in a locked box hidden deep in the digestive tract of a insomniac pit bull – and backed the car out of the garage, up on a retaining wall. The car fell over. The thief left, and was apparently so confident he could continue his work without interruption he strolled a few blocks south and stole a car off the street.

The owner had made the mistake of parking the car on the street, which is becoming one of those things you don’t do in Minneapolis anymore, I guess. If you must, please remove the steering column, deflate your tires, and place exploding dye packs in the glove compartment. Really, people, it’s all about taking sensible precautions. Be proactive. Think like McGruff.

Anyway, the thief trashed the car behind him when he tried to back up and leave. The owners of the first car – who had an alarm system and motion detector lights, which are apparently good for giving a thief a nice illuminated workspace – asked the police to come by. Quoting from the neighborhood crime-watch email:

Much to my dismay the officer indicated that they are really busy so no one would be coming out to take prints. =(

We mention this as a public service, in case any criminals are reading, and have found that wearing gloves cuts down on your manual dexterity. Don’t bother.

You just have to know the local cops aren't going to enjoy reading that on the Strib's website.