On December 14 the Los Angeles Times brought us this completely delightful story from Southern California, titled “Man arrested, charged with trying to steal charter bus in Glendale.” The would be car thief tried to con his way into owning his very own chartered bus, and he would have gotten away with it, if it hadn’t been for a group of meddling senior citizens.
In the wealthy Los Angeles suburb of Glendale, a charter bus company was in the process of loading passengers for a day trip to a nearby casino around one p.m. on Sunday afternoon. That’s when Glendale police allege that an unidentified man decided to try his luck and steal the charter bus, despite the fact that a group of senior passengers had already boarded the vehicle.
A charter bus company in the area frequently arranges charter bus trips for excursions to local attractions like casinos. According to police officials, the man walked right past the waiting passengers and slammed shut the bus storage doors. He then tried to cut the line and climb aboard. When he was told he needed a reservation to enter, he pretended to be a representative from the charter bus company. When he couldn’t produce any sort of identification, he simply forced his way on the bus and sat behind the driver’s seat, taking the wheel.
Perhaps the would be car thief thought charter bus tours full of senior citizens would make for a soft target. If so, he couldn’t have been more wrong.
A group of passengers grabbed the car jacker and physically removed him from the bus, forcing him to run away from the scene of his failed burglary. Glendale police apprehended the suspect a block away from the scene of the not quite crime. The following Monday the man was charged with one count of attempted vehicle theft in a Los Angeles courtroom, police said.
