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Stockholm cops red-faced as drunk drives off in their car

A couple of Stockholm police officers were left red-faced on Saturday night after they left their car unlocked with the keys in the ignition, only to see a drunken twenty-year-old climb in and drive it away.

Stockholm cops red-faced as drunk drives off in their car
A Swedish police vehicle driving in Malmö, Skåne. Photo: News Öresund
The officers spent more than an hour looking for the vehicle before finding it on the other side of Stockholm, together with the twenty-year-old culprit, who had fallen asleep inside. 
 
“It’s quite funny actually,” Carin Wetterlöf from the Stockholm police,” told Aftonbladet when asked about her colleagues’ mishap. “It made us all snigger.” 
 
“The car was unwatched and a man passing by thought, ‘it's just standing here, so I’ll take it’, and that’s exactly what he did,” she said. 
 
The car was one of a large number of police cars checking traffic at The Traneberg Bridge linking Stockholm's Kungsholmen island with the suburb of Bromma (see video here).
 
Stockholm police were able to use the car’s own GPS system to track it down to Nacka, right on the other side of the city. 
 
“There was no car chase. The car was just standing there by Värmdöleden,”  Wetterlöf said. “I think the guy was just sitting and sleeping in it.”
 
The man showed signs of both alcohol and drug use so the charges he faces will go beyond theft. 
 
Wetterlöf noted that stealing a police car was perhaps not “the smartest” move.