Coordinates Capture by CHP : Taxi Passenger Spots Car Stolen From Him

It was one of the stranger freeway busts in recent memory, California Highway Patrol officers said Wednesday.

“We just put the handcuffs on,” CHP Officer Lyle Whitten said. “He did most of the work.”

He was Alphonse Ruocco, who pretty much caught his own crooks.

Ruocco, a Connecticut resident, was in Southern California to see the Freedom Bowl game Tuesday night between UCLA and Brigham Young University at Anaheim Stadium. In the first of a series of freak coincidences, Ruocco’s rental car was stolen Sunday night from the parking lot of the Anaheim hotel where he was staying.

He reported the theft to Anaheim police and got another car from National Car Rental, Whitten said.

Tuesday afternoon, the second rental car became overheated and broke down in East Los Angeles, leaving Ruocco, 50, and his son stranded. That was at 5:30 p.m., and the Freedom Bowl kickoff was scheduled for 5 p.m. Ruocco, an avid Bruins fan, hailed a cab driven by Stuart A. Smith, 33.

Son Sees Youths

On Interstate 5, somewhere in Downey, a bottle was thrown at the cab. Ruocco’s 17-year-old son turned and saw behind him five youths riding in a white 1987 Toyota. They were laughing hysterically.

The younger Ruocco said he thought the Toyota was the rental car that had been stolen Sunday. His father pulled out his first rental car receipt and compared the license plate number with the one on the car behind him, Whitten said. They matched.

“Out of all the thousands of cars on the freeway in rush-hour traffic,” Whitten said, “and he spots his own stolen car. It was bizarre.”

Traffic was moving about 25 m.p.h. in the southbound lanes. Ruocco had the cab driver radio his dispatcher, who then reported the stolen car to the Santa Fe Springs office of the CHP. Officers entered the freeway at several on-ramps before one of them spotted the cab with the white Toyota behind it.

Just south of the Magnolia Avenue off-ramp in Anaheim, the officers converged on the Toyota and stopped it.

Officers Wait

The officers drew their guns, ordered the teen-age boys to throw the keys away from the car and put their hands up. Whitten said the officers waited and waited. Finally, the 16-year-old driver of the car had to admit he had no keys.

The car had been hot-wired, Whitten said.

The driver was arrested on suspicion of possessing a stolen car.

“When the Anaheim detective asked him if he thought all this was karma, the kid said, ‘I don’t know Carmen,’ ” Whitten said.

Two other 16-year-old boys and two 14-year-olds, all of them friends who live in Anaheim, were taken home and released to their parents, Whitten said.

Ruocco got back in his cab and was taken to a car rental agency in Anaheim for his third vehicle.

He missed the first quarter of the game, Whitten said, but fortunately the Bruins won.