It seemed like a gift from the crime gods: as an alleged shoplifter was trying to get away from police, there just happened to be an idling car right outside the nearby abandoned Borders. Police say that he got in and tried to make his getaway…and that’s when he learned that the vehicle had an interlock device meant to check the driver’s alcohol levels before letting the car move.

Instead of making a spectactular getaway, the man was stuck on the scene in a stranger’s car.

With some accomplices, he allegedly had ripped off $4,500 worth of purses from the store…and also a pair of socks, for some reason. The loot was in the suspects’ car, but the store security staff had called police.

All this man needed to do was blow into the interlock device, but it appears that he wasn’t familiar with them and didn’t know what to do. “He starts to rev the engine like he was trying to engage it and he couldn’t engage the shifter,” one police officer explained to the Hartford Courant.

The device had been installed in the car after the owner was charged with drunk driving. Not for fun, but as a legal requirement. The legal system probably didn’t know that the device would prevnt crimes other than driving under the influence.

Police eventually caught up with the shoplifter, though one of this two accomplices is still at large.

Tries To Steal Car, Can’t Get It Moving [Hartford Courant]

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