A teen stole the man’s car, but SC cops say the victim is also to blame
A teenager was arrested for stealing a vehicle Tuesday, but he is not the only one responsible for the crime, according to a South Carolina police department.
The Greenville police is also blaming the owner of the truck, according to an Instagram post from the department.
“This could have been prevented if the car was not left running and unattended,” the post said.
Although 18-year-old Terrence Glover was arrested for auto theft, the owner of the truck also committed a crime, according to the police department’s post.
It is against the law in South Carolina to leave an idling car unattended, according to the state legislature.
“No person driving or in charge of a motor vehicle shall permit it to stand unattended without first stopping the engine, locking the ignition, removing the key and effectively setting the brake thereon and, when standing upon any grade, turning the front wheels to the curb or side of the highway,” reads the section of law on parking an unattended motor vehicle, per scstatehouse.gov.
Greenville police said on Instagram that the stolen truck was the most recent of “several incidents where vehicle owners have turned on their vehicles in the morning, left them unattended and returned to their houses, only to find their vehicles stolen when they went back outside.”
That is what happened in this circumstance as the owner “started their truck and left it running and unattended, only to hear tires squealing, a trashcan hit, and see the vehicle speeding away just minutes later,” according to the police department’s post.
Police said this was a “preventable crime,” and urged the public not to leave an idling car unattended, the post said.
The law is not only meant to prevent cars from being stolen, The State previously reported. It also exists to “protect vulnerable persons, such as children or the elderly, from getting behind the wheel of an unattended vehicle and potentially harming someone,” a spokesperson for the Bluffton Police Department told the newspaper.
According to Popular Mechanics, it is bad for your vehicle’s engine to leave it idling in the cold. Letting the car to sit while warming up, attended or unattended, will strip “oil away from the engine’s cylinders and pistons,” the magazine said.
