More fun in Baltimore:

Baltimore City police have a new crime on the books: Stealing your own car.

Just ask Keith Spence, a Baltimore City resident who was arrested when he was driving home from work in a car he bought with a tax refund.

“I couldn’t believe it was happening,” Spence said.

Spence, 28, said city police pulled him over in his 1993 red Cadillac Elderado coupe for a cracked rear window in February. Four officers dragged Spence and his two passengers from the car and said they were under arrest for stealing it, he said.

“I was listening to the radio from the back seat of the police car. It said a gray Cadillac sedan was stolen; mine is a red coupe. I guess the officer must have been color blind,” he said.

“I tried to tell them it was my car, but they wouldn’t listen.”

[...]

Even though Spence had the title proving he owned the car, he said he was cleared of the charges because of the testimony of the owner of the stolen car.

“The whole courtroom fell out — even the judge laughed,” Spence told The Examiner.

And…the punchline:

Still, police sold Spence’s car at auction two months before his day in court.

Spence now has to sue for the city to reimburse him. And if this goes like most forfeiture cases, he won’t be reimbursed for court costs, even if he wins.

This entry was posted on Monday, August 28th, 2006 at 12:02 pm by Radley Balko and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.