The General Manager for the Yankees, Brian Cashman, found himself surrounded by a group of Connecticut police officers on Friday after he was mistaken for an armed car thief.
Cashman, 52, was driving his white Jeep Wrangler from Yankee Stadium to Connecticut after it had been reported stolen last week, the New York Post reported, citing team sources. However, earlier this week, officers with the New York Police Department discovered Cashman's vehicle abandoned in the Bronx, and had returned it to him.
The GM was driving the Wrangler up to the Norwalk Police Department to have it processed for evidence when he stopped at a gas station in Darien. There, Cashman says he "had a welcoming committee descend upon me as I pulled out of that gas station."
According to the report, Darien police were already in the area searching for an armed suspect in a white Jeep who had been "brandishing a gun in a local doctor's office." Because the NYPD had never taken Cashman's Jeep off the stolen car list, his plates came up as stolen when the Darien cops ran his license plates.
Cashman says as many as five patrol cars surrounded his vehicle with several officers getting out with their guns drawn.
"They executed a very tactful interception," said Cashman.
Once officers got Cashman out of the Jeep, they searched his vehicle and got his identification, he was able to explain what was going on. The whole encounter lasted around 15 minutes, Cashman said. When it was over, Darien police escorted Cashman the rest of the way up to the Norwalk Police Department to make sure no one else tried to pull him over.
Cashman says he's curious why his vehicle was never taken off the NYPD's stolen car list, but that he's reassured that if someone is in a stolen vehicle, "they're not going to get very far."
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