10/10/16 Indianapolis, IN – Metro Police Had Police Officer’s Assigned Patrol Car Stolen From His Driveway – Police Car Found In The Middle Of A Field – Window Broken

October 10, 2016

indystar.com

The Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department apparently had no idea it was missing a patrol car until a motorist in Johnson County on Friday morning spotted the car in the middle of a field.

A thief apparently stole the car overnight from an officer’s Southeastside home, an IMPD dispatcher said today. The car was found in a field south of County Line Road at 10235 Shelbyville Road where someone drove it off the road and left it.

Johnson County deputies notified IMPD after responding to the location.

Conversation about the incident played out on police radio after the car was found.

Was it true, one officer or dispatcher asked, that a police car was recovered that no one knew was stolen?

“Affirmative,” came the reply.

When the officer was contacted, she went to her driveway to find shattered glass from where a thief apparently broke a window to get into the car, a dispatcher said.

The dispatcher did not know if the car contained any weapons or if anything was missing from it.

Detectives were investigating the theft, the dispatcher said.

The police car is not the only Indianapolis municipal vehicle to be targeted in recent weeks.

Last month, two other city-owned vehicles were swiped.

On Sept. 30, IMPD pursued and stopped an ambulance someone drove away from Community East Hospital. And the week before that, an Animal Care and Control van was found on the Eastside after a thief drove it away from a home where an animal control officer was investigating a dog incident.