Short Reach of Law Snares 3rd Alleged Thief

For the third time this year, Buena Park police Monday made an auto theft arrest in a most unlikely spot--the Police Department parking lot.

The latest suspect is a 19-year-old man suspected of stealing a champagne-colored 1987 Mercedes-Benz convertible from a nearby auto dealership.

Earlier this year, two other people were arrested after pulling into the same lot off Beach Boulevard. There was the man last March who allegedly stole a car off a service station jack and learned, as he raced away, that the car had only three wheels. He was chased by a caravan of angry motorists and headed into the police parking lot “for his own protection,” Officer Terry Branum recalled Tuesday. Then came the woman who got a speeding ticket and drove to the Police Department to complain--in a stolen auto.

“The other two were brain surgeons,” joked Branum. “But this guy (arrested Monday) wins our rocket scientist of the year award.”

About 5:30 p.m., police said, Kenneth Gale Oliver was spotted in the Police Department parking lot, relieving himself on a tree. This attracted the attention of a police officer passing by.

The officer then saw Oliver pulling a bicycle from the trunk of the 560SL coupe, which aroused further suspicion. He started asking questions.

“About this time, the guy started looking around trying to figure out where he was,” Branum said.

Gone for Test Drive

Oliver allegedly told the officer that he was leaving the bicycle chained to the tree for a friend. Noticing that there were no license plates on the Mercedes, the officer asked who owned it. Oliver replied that he had taken it for a test drive from the House of Imports, one-quarter mile from the police station, Branum said.

“They’ll want it back any minute,” said Oliver, according to the officer’s police report. Oliver had managed to put 500 miles on the $58,000 convertible, Branum said.

Over his police radio, the officer asked a dispatcher to check vehicle identification numbers on the car, Branum said. Inside the police station, an auto theft detective who had taken the stolen vehicle report from managers of the Beach Boulevard car dealership recognized the car description and ran outside into the parking lot, Branum said.

“It was one of our tougher investigations,” he added.

Oliver, an unemployed Costa Mesa resident who police said has been convicted of armed robbery and credit card fraud, was booked into Orange County Jail on suspicion of grand theft of an auto, where he remained Tuesday night in lieu of $10,000 bail. Police said they believe that Oliver was attempting to abandon the car after “joy-riding” in it for several days.

The Mercedes apparently was stolen Thursday or Friday, but it wasn’t discovered missing until Monday morning, when Oliver apparently parked it outside a welfare office in Costa Mesa and walked in to apply for public assistance.

A caseworker, noticing the gleaming new vehicle and the House of Imports license plate frame, called the dealership to tell them one of their cars was being driven “by a guy who doesn’t look like he can afford it,” recalled Will Grassie, the car salesman who spoke with caseworker Jerry Schultz.

Left Name With Caseworker

Grassie said Schultz gave him Oliver’s name as the driver of the Mercedes. Before detectives could locate Oliver, he pulled up at their doorstep.

Branum said Oliver drove into the parking lot on the Court Street side of the police station, where there are no signs identifying it, Branum said. “It looks more like an office building.”

But Patrick Kevin West knew exactly what he was driving himself into last March. With the angry motorists on his tail, West, who police say had just driven away from a service station at the wheel of a 1977 Chevrolet owned by a retired clergyman, headed for the police station “for his own protection,” police said. And it was amazing he got that far.

The car had been stolen off a jack and was missing a front tire and wheel.

“Davy Crockett could have found this guy,” Branum said at the time. “There’s a 2 1/2-mile white line from the gas station right to the police station where the brake drum had torn the asphalt. . . . We have criminals well-trained here.”

Jailed and released on his own recognizance pending trial, West next made contact with law enforcement authorities two months later in the parking lot of a Buena Park hospital. He was arrested there for allegedly driving a stolen car, which he told police belonged to his girlfriend “Lucky.”

On Tuesday, there was some discussion among officers about the possibility of putting up a police sign on the side of the building.

“We’ve decided against that,” Branum said. “We’re now talking about just putting in a drive-up window and going home at 5.”