The increase in car thefts is not reflective of larger crime trends in the District, where property crimes are down 20% overall compared to last year.

The Metropolitan Police Department is looking for a suspect who earlier today hopped in the driver’s seat of an idled police car and proceeded to drive off, only to crash after traveling a block.

A D.C. man was convicted today of a bizarre August 2012 crime in which he impersonated a District government worker, conned an elderly woman into allowing him to tow her car away, and then selling the vehicle for scrap metal at a Maryland junkyard.

Auto theft isn’t funny — after all, thousands of vehicles are stolen in the District every year. But this reminder, sent by Metropolitan Police Department Commander Kimberly Chisley-Missouri to the department’s Fourth District listserv led us to chuckle a little bit.