Shift of Fortune : Police Catch Youths Baffled When Stolen Car Stalls

Six youths who tried to steal a 1984 Volkswagen Scirocco Sunday found themselves in Orange County Juvenile Hall because the driver could not drive a stick shift.

Paul Rand, 22, of Long Beach, was sitting in his car on a Riverside Avenue and West Coast Highway parking lot in Newport Beach at 2:50 a.m. Sunday when two youths, one of whom was carrying a sawed-off 12-gauge shotgun, approached him and demanded his car. Four other youths stood behind them.

Rand gave them the keys and ran, Newport Beach Police Detective Dave Hartman said. The youths drove the car out of the parking lot, but it stalled at a red light a block away because the driver did not know how to operate a manual transmission, police said. While the youths were trying to start the car again, police arrived and the youths fled on foot.

The four officers captured the youths, whose ages range from 12 to 17, a block away on Riverside Avenue and Avon Street. The police also recovered a loaded shotgun in a nearby ditch, Hartman said.

The youths, all Pomona residents, also are wanted in connection with a car stolen earlier in the evening in Pomona, police said. The youths apparently abandoned the first car in Newport Beach when it ran out of gas, police said. They have been charged with robbery and car theft.