Car 3006, where were you?
When somebody stole the Mountain View police car at a concert Friday night at Shoreline Amphitheatre, the brass called in a helicopter and had officers scour the streets looking for the black-and-white cruiser with a shotgun inside.
Nothing.
Then they asked neighboring police departments to look out for the cruiser and sent up the ‘copter again Saturday afternoon.
“A cop car stands out from a helicopter,”officer Liz Wylie said during the search. “It has a white roof.”
Again, nada.
On Sunday morning, Wylie took an educated guess as to where Car 3006 could be found.
“Probably in a garage. Whoever took it is probably asking himself, ‘Heck, now what?’ ”
She was right.
A few hours later, at approximately 1:35 p.m., a resident of an apartment complex on High School Way spotted Car 3006 parked in the garage and called police. Officers found it unlocked and undamaged, but the keys were gone — and so was the car thief.
And the shotgun? Still there, locked in place. In police lingo, it was a “less-lethal” gun that fires beanbags, not shotgun pellets.
Wylie said police will look for evidence that they hope will lead them to the culprit.
The unusual drama began during a concert by the groups Nine Inch Nails and Janes Addiction.
Police believe a teenager or young adult stole the cruiser after its driver, an unnamed officer, inadvertently left the keys in the car when he went to assist another officer. He returned minutes later at 11:15 p.m. and found the black-and-white car missing.
Soon after, a Shoreline concert employee reported seeing a police cruiser “showboating” on Shoreline Boulevard. The driver gunned the engine and was speeding.
Police set up checkpoints on streets near the amphitheater. They called in the San Jose Police Department’s helicopter. Initially, they hoped the Ford Crown Victoria cruiser would be spotted quickly.
Although police believe the patrol car was stolen for a misguided joy ride, they were worried that the thief could have driven recklessly through traffic with the flashing lights on. Worse, Car 3006 could have fallen later into really wrong hands.
“This is post-911 America,” Wylie said before it turned up. “We have to be concerned about someone using it to impersonate an officer.”
And no, the cruiser wasn’t equipped with a GPS device that would have divulged its location.
Contact Joe Rodriguez at jrodriguez@mercurynews.com or 408-920-5767.