Woonsocket Police Catch Man 'Car Shopping,' Legs Sticking Out of Jeep

Woonsocket Police officers Michael Theroux and Matthew Labine were dispatched to 96 Mill St. at about 3:53 a.m. May 5 for a report of a man rummaging through vehicles.

Labine arrived at the address, an apartment building with a large parking lot, and noticed a pair of legs hanging out of the partially unzipped soft-top rear window of a Jeep Wrangler. The legs turned out to be connected to Joshua Alger, 19, of 425 Diamond Hill Road, Apt. #2. The man was wearing a backpack, and appeared to have unzipped the rear window to get into the Jeep, according to Labine's report.

Labine ordered the man out of the Jeep, but he was stuck, and needed the officer's assistance to get out of the vehicle. Alger told Labine, "I'm sorry, you got me. I f***** up."   

The officers found numerous items on Alger's person and inside his backpack, all of them items commonly stolen from area vehicles, including CDs, a laptop, three bottles of prescription medications, apartment keys, an Alpine radio faceplate, and two remote garage door openers. 

About seven nearby vehicles, not including the Jeep, had been entered. While speaking with the reporting caller, police learned Alger had dropped other bags nearby, and located them. In one of the new bags, officers found a shoebox filled with gun ammunition. 

Later, officers also found items taken from nearby cars hidden in bushes along the property. Officers contacted the owners of the vehicles and began making arrangements to reunite the owners with their property, according to Labine's report. The officer surmised Alger was hiding the items so he could pick them up later without having to carry it all at once. 

Alger told Labine he'd been "car shopping," slang for stealing items from vehicles. He was charged with two counts of larceny of less than $1,500, and one count of tampering with vehicles, all misdemeanors.