Man asked for ‘pleH’ after getting trapped overnight in police car he'd sneaked into

A police officer in Portland, Oregon was surprised to find a man locked in the back seat of an unattended patrol car early on Tuesday morning.

Shortly before 8am an officer working out of Southeast Precinct heard someone yelling from the backseat of an unattended patrol car, parked in the lot. The officer opened the back door of the patrol car and found, 30-year-old Ruben James Turner III, who told the officer that he'd accidentally locked himself inside the back of the police car after deciding to sleep in the car, which had apparently been left unlocked.

Prior to getting himself locked in the backseat, which is the secure custody section of the vehicle, Turner rummaged through the vehicle's glove box and unhooked the Mobile Data Computer (MDC) from the mount. However, once Turner got himself tucked in to the back seat, he was locked in the vehicle. Turner caused extensive damage to the rear of the patrol car by ripping out foam padding from the headliner and around the plastic seats.

In an attempt to summon assistance, Turner wrote "pleH" (Help) with his finger in the condensation on a window. Turner was unaware that Southeast Precinct is not staffed 24 hours a day and nobody was around to help him until the next morning. Turner was arrested and booked into the Multnomah County Jail on charges of Criminal Mischief in the First Degree, Unlawful Entry into a Motor Vehicle and Criminal Trespass in the Second Degree.