Ramsey Car Theft Generates Laughs, if Not Leads

"If everyone gets a little chuckle at my expense, well, that's not the worst thing that can happen to me," Ramsey said.

"The strange thing is, the city is 29 percent [down] in auto theft this year," he added, referring to the trend through mid-June. "But for the 2,800 people who had their cars taken, it's very little comfort that the number's down."

Ramsey said that while he was growing up in Chicago, his parents' home was burglarized and he once was robbed by a bunch of thugs. But this is the first time since childhood that he has been a crime victim.

"I think it's good that sometimes we get the chance to see things from someone else's perspective," Ramsey said. "What if this was the only way I had to get to work? What if this car was part of my livelihood?"

Less hardened folks who have been in Ramsey's shoes offered their condolences to the chief.

"I don't find anything funny about it," said Elsie Long, who is still steamed that her car was stolen from right outside her Congress Park home six years ago. "It's a comment on how bold everyone's getting. . . . I was really, really mad when mine was stolen. . . . I think some of those little thugs stole the chief's car. They love those Crown Victorias."

Not seeing his car in its usual parking spot gave Ramsey the sinking feeling that Long remembers.

"It gives you that empty feeling, when you go out to your car to go somewhere and it's just not there," Ramsey said.

Shand remembers it, too: "There's no fun in having a key in your hand and no car to put it in when you've got to go to work."

As Ramsey got a replacement car, D.C. police officers continued searching for the missing Crown Victoria, scanning the empty lots, alleys and streets known as dumping grounds for stolen vehicles.

Just about every officer in the city knew the plate number by heart: AL 6072.

Staff writer Del Quentin Wilber contributed to this report.