Salt Lake City Man trying to get officer’s attention takes patrol car for drive around the block

SALT LAKE CITY — A man who apparently wasn’t getting the attention he wanted from police fast enough was arrested after allegedly deciding to take an officer’s patrol vehicle for a short joy ride.

Just before 3 a.m. Tuesday, while police were on the scene of another incident, Ryan Joseph Schmeichel, 38, walked up to an officer stating he wanted to talk to them, according to police. The officer asked the man to wait, stating that police were in the middle of investigating another incident. Schmeichel tried this a second time and got the same response, according to police.

That’s when Schmeichel got into a marked police K-9 patrol vehicle, with a police K-9 still in a caged area in the back of the truck, and started driving, a police affidavit states. Police say he drove up next to another officer’s vehicle who told Schmeichel to get out.

After he was arrested, Schmeichel explained to police that “the door was open and he took the car around the block. (He) said he knew he was not allowed to take the car,” the affidavit states.