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A Vintage Cadillac, Scavenged to Death by Thieves -- and Indifference

Some cars you describe, and some you relish. Let's lick our chops together over this beauty:

A 1984 Cadillac Coupe de Ville, dark blue, just renovated inside and out, in perfect shape. "It was like a classic," said its owner, Willis Earl Jones, of Southeast Washington.

Please note the past tense. Willis's car no longer exists. It was slowly picked to pieces by thieves in Southwest Washington, after it was stolen on the evening of Oct. 31 from outside a restaurant in nearby Oxon Hill.

Over the course of nearly a month, the D.C. police were notified several times that the car was sitting behind a building on Danbury Street SW. They never stopped the stripping, never caught the thieves and never notified Willis. This despite the fact that the license plates were still on the car the day Willis came to claim its remains.

Willis learned the fate of his beloved Cadillac only after the scavengers pried the lid off the trunk.

Albert Pollin, who owns the vacant apartment house behind which the car was ditched, had been watching its gradual dismemberment. He says he called the police four times, throughout the first three weeks of November. Each time, the dispatcher said they'd send someone out. But every few days, when Albert checked, more of the car would be missing.

Finally, after the trunk was open to the elements, Albert noticed some service records from Capitol Cadillac in Greenbelt. He poked through them, discovered Willis's address and phone number and notified him.

Willis got $3,400 from his insurance company. To Willis, the car was worth much more, especially since he had spent $7,214.93 on a new engine, a new catalytic converter and a paint job just one week before the car was stolen. He had even had the seats shampooed by hand.

The D.C. police say they have no record of any of Albert Pollin's calls. Of course, they wouldn't have needed any calls if an officer had patrolled the parking lot behind Albert's building.

On Nov. 2, two days after the car was stolen, the Cadillac already was minus its wheels, its seats and one of its windows, according to Albert. Any police officer on Earth would have recognized the car as probably stolen.

By the time Albert reached Willis on Nov. 24, all that was left was the shell of a car, the motor and four pairs of golf shoes.

As Albert points out, "If Mr. Jones had been called on Nov. 6 or 7, his car could have been salvaged."

As it was, Willis not only lost his car; he witnessed some of its destruction.

"When I finally showed up down there," he told me, "there were some fellas there. They were bringing things from inside my car." They didn't even stop when he identified himself as the owner. It reminded him of the way bugs feast on the carcass of a dead animal, he said.

I grew weary of waiting for police officials in the 7th District to return my calls, so I got in touch with an old friend on the force. He has worked the streets of Anacostia and Congress Heights for a long time. He long ago volunteered to be my "reality check" whenever I needed him, as long as I didn't identify him.

"Look, you've got to understand something," he said, after I ran the story past him. "It wasn't like every member of the force wanted to see this man's car get stripped. But we've got murders every day and armed robberies every hour. Plus things are so bad inside the department that we don't always have gas for our scout cars. You really think a stolen transmission and radio is that big a deal, by comparison?"

I told him I could see the reasoning, sort of. But no action for nearly a month? Let the thieves have a field day for four whole weeks?

"It's possible that someone in the department did know a stolen car was at that location," this officer told me. "But that doesn't necessarily mean we could have found a tow truck. We don't have a tow truck assigned to this district all the time, and it's the biggest in the whole city."

Yes, my friend, but the tags were on the car. And the factory-installed serial number was inside the driver's side of the windshield. That's why you people have computers. You could have found Willis in 20 minutes. If the police couldn't tow the car away, its owner certainly could have.

"I can't defend it. I can only try to explain it," said Mr. Reality Check.

After his experience, I wouldn't blame Willis if he moved to Alaska and started traveling by dogsled. But he has done neither. His response to the trashing of the Cadillac?

He bought another.

"I bought me a '96 Fleetwood Brougham," he told me. "It's dark cherry. It's beautiful. I'm not going to let nobody dictate to me."

Oh, yes. The new Brougham is equipped with one of those anti-theft devices that clamps onto the steering wheel.

"I may have been burned once," Willis said, "but I'm not interested in twice."