Hey, I think that's my car!
Lesson? Don't leave your keys in the ignition
By OLIVER MACKSON
Staff Writer

BLOOMING GROVE, Orange County – John Schultz passed his car
on Route 208 yesterday. And he wasn't even driving. State Police
were still searching last night for the thief who was. Schultz and two
of his buddies, Dick Babcock and Ed Connor, meet at the
Monroe Diner every morning before they go to work construction
jobs in Rockland County.  There was no work for them yesterday,
so they drove back to the diner, where Schultz had left his car.
They were maybe 50 feet away from the diner, headed south on
Route 208, when Schultz's red 1989 Camaro came rolling out of the
diner's parking lot. "The guys were saying, 'Hey, there's your car.'
I didn't think it was mine, but then I saw the bumper stickers,' "
Schultz recalled last night, a few hours after his car was recovered,
undamaged.  He had left the keys in the ignition and the car's
windows rolled down: "Put down in the paper that I was really stupid,
" Schultz said with a wry laugh last night. Connor, 21, of Washingtonville,
was driving. He braked, flipped a U-turn and followed the Camaro.
He also dialed 911 from his cell phone and told State Police in Monroe
what was happening. The thief in Schultz's Camaro kept driving north
on Route 208.  Connor followed in his beat-up Oldsmobile, whose
speedometer ends at 85 mph. The needle was hugging the quick
side of the speedometer, Connor said. "I thought we were all going to crash.
We were going pretty fast," said Schultz. Blooming Grove Police Chief
Carl Schupp joined the chase in his unmarked car.
It wound through Round Hill Road and Tuthill Road, back toward Route 94.
After a 10- to 12-mile run, the thief parked the car about a
half-mile away from the Blooming Grove police station and
bolted down an old railroad bed. Schupp barely got a glimpse of the man
before he disappeared into the woods. State Police used a tracking
K-9 to try to find the thief, and also dispatched their helicopter.
Troopers and Blooming Grove cops canvassed the area and manned roadblocks.
But the thief didn't turn up. "Fortunately, he chose not to continue
the pursuit," Schupp said. "It's a deadly situation on secondary roads
that usually aren't maintained as well as a state highway or an interstate.
When you have unsuspecting motorists on the road while that's going on,
you have the potential for a real disaster."