OK Cop Spots Spray-Painted Car, Finds It Is Stolen

In Tulsa, OK, a police officer noticed a car with a “fresh and poorly done spray-can paint job” and found it odd Aug. 31. He stopped the car since it was being driven with an expired paper tag and soon learned it was stolen.

Tulsa police say the car had been stolen from a tire shop weeks earlier and the driver, Willie Carl Steward, told officers he had purchased the it from a man in a park. He even told them it came with that paint job, and he had only paid $220 up front and was to pay $780 later. At some point, someone had applied spray paint over the car's original white paint job.

“Unfortunately, a bad paint job is not a crime in Oklahoma, but in this case, it probably should be,” the department says in a social media post.

Steward was charged with possession of a stolen car. However, police do not think he is the person who originally stole the car. A tire shop employee told police a man swapped the keys when returning them after a test drive and then stole the car. The suspect who stole the car does not match the description of Steward, police say.