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Last updated on Friday, November 21, 2014
(OOLITIC) - An Oolitic man was arrested after he attempted to steal a Comcast service truck Thursday morning.
According to Lawrence County Sheriff Sam Craig, officers were called to the 500 block of West 9th Street in Oolitic at 9:41 a.m.
A Comcast employee told police there were working in the area when someone got into the service truck and took off. The workers were able to follow the stolen vehicle.
Officers from Lawrence County, Indiana State Police and Greene County were alerted.
The vehicle was stopped by a Greene County deputy on Ind. 54 just east of Bloomfield. Lawrence County officers arrived a short time later.
Driving the vehicle was 34-year-old Steven Stroud of Oolitic.
Stroud told officers they had no right to stop him because he was an employee with Comcast.
"That was not true," says Sheriff Craig. "He kept telling the officer they shouldn't arrest him because he was working for Comcast."
Stroud, who police say smelled of alcohol, was taken to a local hospital for a blood draw. Those results are pending.
Stroud was arrested for robbery (which is also auto theft under the new state statues), driving while driver's license suspended with prior convictions, operating a vehicle while intoxicated endangerment, OWI under the influence of a controlled substance.
Sheriff Craig say Stroud is also a suspect in the theft of a 2005 Chevrolet sedan from the Family Dollar Store in Oolitic.
Police were called to the store on just before 3 p.m. Monday after a woman reported an unknown man had stolen her 2005 black Chevrolet sedan.
The owner of the vehicle told police she had been in the store to purchase items and was loading those items into the back of her sedan when all of a sudden the vehicle was in gear and she looked up and saw a man sitting in the driver's seat.
"The man told the woman to move out of the way or he would run over her," says Sheriff Sam Craig. "The woman moved and the man drove off with the vehicle."
Inside the vehicle were the items the woman purchased, her cell phone and purse.
Chief Deputy Mike Branham says the vehicle was recovered Wednesday a few blocks from the store in an alley. The woman's phone, purse, wallet, groceries and keys were still in the vehicle.
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