New York Man Arrested : CHP Officer’s Car, Lunch Stolen

A transient from New York stole a California Highway Patrol car from a freeway shoulder, took it for a spin and ate a lunch the officer had left inside before being arrested in Sun Valley an hour and a half later, authorities said Sunday.

Jose Luis Rivera, 28, was arrested for auto theft and taken to Parker Center Jail after authorities finally tracked him down on the southbound Golden State Freeway near Sunland Boulevard, said CHP Sgt. Jim Kennedy.

Officer Janet Engler had stepped away from her patrol car to give a ticket to a motorist on the Santa Monica Freeway just east of the Harbor Freeway about 10:30 a.m. Saturday when Rivera, who was in a pedestrian undercrossing nearby, climbed the embankment onto the freeway, Kennedy said. He got in the car and sped away.

Officer Saw Driver

Engler “turned around and saw him drive away,” Kennedy said. She radioed that her car had been taken.

“For the next hour and a half, the suspect drove around the Los Angeles freeway system,” Kennedy said. “We’re not really sure where he went.”

Rivera eluded officers until just before noon when a deputy sheriff saw a man “who didn’t look like he should be driving a black and white police car” and radioed CHP officers, Kennedy said. Rivera was arrested without incident.

He told officers that he took the car simply because it was there. Kennedy said the officer found the car theft and lunch consumption embarrassing.

Engler had a bag lunch in the car “that wasn’t there when they captured him, so they assumed that he ate it,” Kennedy said.