A Man Not in Blue (Or in Any Color) Steals Police Car

There are eight million stories in the naked city. This is one of them.

A blue and white police car sped through Central Park early yesterday morning, headed north. There was nothing unusual about it – except that the man behind the wheel had no clothes on. Close behind him came a lot of other police cars. Their drivers had all their clothes on, but they were as embarrassed as if they hadn’t. The naked man had stolen the car from two of their fully uniformed colleagues. It all started when Officers Francis Kitz and Reluardo Amaral came upon a man strolling through Greenwich Village completely naked. They stopped and ordered him into their patrol car, the man leaped from the rear seat to the front, engaged the gears and roared off. The two stranded policemen called the Sixth Precinct station house, on West 10th Street. In Riverside Park the man stopped the car and fled into the bushes where he was captured. For his court appearance the man was provided with a raincoat and a pair of old trousers, but no shoes. Officers Kitz and Amaral were provided with considerable amount of needling by their fellow officers. “They took some ribbing,” another police officer said.

Excerpt from March 19, 1977 New York Times