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Thieves pounce on cars left running
By JON WILSON © St. Petersburg Times, published October 1, 2000 ST. PETERSBURG -- Ever done this? You drive up to drop a video or visit an ATM. You hop out of your vehicle and leave the engine running. Heck, it's only going to take a few seconds. More than 20 people did just that last month -- and had their cars or trucks stolen from under their noses. Thieves likely were waiting nearby for just such an opportunity, police say. They are reminding people always to turn off the engine and take out the keys when leaving a vehicle even for seconds. "It's obvious opportunistic criminals are staking places out," said police spokesman Dan Bates. Twenty-two vehicles, left running with the keys in them, were stolen in St. Petersburg in the first three weeks of September, police said. "Basically, one a day," Bates said. Among them were two taken in front of the Blockbuster video store at Northeast Shopping Center off of First Street N and 40th Avenue. And a gun-point carjacking happened downtown just after midnight on Sept. 22. In that incident, three people had just visited an ATM near Fourth Street N and Third Avenue, where they waited for a traffic light to turn green. A van pulled up, blocking the car, and two men with bandanas covering their faces jumped out. One had a pistol, the other a small shotgun or rifle, police said. They stole wallets and drove off in the car, a 1997 Honda Accord. A few days later, officers Don Sigley and Mark Williams were answering a loud-party complaint when they spied the stolen car near Third Avenue S and 27th Street. Officers followed the car and arrested two men. Garris Leroy Johnson, 20, 2363 13th St. S., was charged with armed carjacking and is in the Pinellas County Jail under $50,000 bond, records show. Grayson Lavar Johnson, 18, same address, was charged with armed carjacking and fleeing and eluding; he remains in jail under bonds totaling $15,000. Police also recovered the two cars stolen at Blockbuster and made an arrest in one of the cases. Last Monday at about 11:15 a.m., Nydia Thomson stopped to return a movie and left her 1997 Lexus running while she dropped the tape in the return slot. A man described as about 25 years old jumped in and started to drive off. Thomson at first held on to the door, then jumped on the hood, determined to stop the theft. "All I knew was I wanted to stop it," Thomson said later last week. "If I can get the guy caught at that point, he's not going to do it again." The man began swerving and braking through the shopping center's parking lot to throw Thomson off the hood. "If I had a grille to hold onto, I would still have been on that car. If I'd had the sun roof off, I would have gone inside it," said Thomson, 51, who fell off the hood when the thief stopped hard. Firefighters from Shore Acres Station No. 12 happened to be there, shopping at Publix for their lunch and dinner. "It looked like something out of the movies," said Bill Moore, a firefighter and emergency medical technician who was sitting behind the wheel of Engine No. 12. The crew stopped and treated Thomson, who Moore said had bumps, scrapes and bruises from falling off the hood. Whoever took the car apparently traded it for a piece of crack cocaine, police said. The Lexus was found early the next morning, abandoned on 23rd Avenue S near 45th Street, police said. Sigley, whom Bates described as especially good at finding stolen vehicles, also helped in this recovery. One man was arrested. Police believe he didn't take the car, but may have driven the man who did to 66th Street N and 49th Avenue. Aaron Devon McKenzie, 20, was charged with driving with a suspended license. He posted $250 bond. Thomson said whoever drove the car put 238 miles on it during the 14 1/2 hours it had been missing. She said she knew what her odometer read because the car had just had its 28,000-mile servicing. In a nearly identical incident, another theft happened in front of Blockbuster on Sept. 8. A 1995 Chevrolet Tahoe was stolen at about 8 a.m. when Brian Cesare stopped to return a video. Police said Cesare reported seeing a man walk next to him, then hearing his door slam shut and seeing his car being driven away toward 40th Avenue N. The suspect was described as a white man in his early 20s, about 5 feet 7 and 155 pounds with blond or straw-colored hair. He was wearing a rust-colored flannel shirt and jeans. Officer David Horner, also a car theft specialist whose nickname is "Tag Man," recovered the Chevrolet later that day after seeing it abandoned on Ninth Avenue S near 39th Street. No arrests had been made as of late last week, but the investigations continue.
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