Thief takes joyride in newspaper truck

Inquirer writer Peter Mucha reports:

Joyriders usually steal a hot set of wheels. Not a newspaper delivery truck. But at 5:50 this morning, while Inquirer/Daily News driver Bob Smith was at a Sixth and Arch honor box, a man jumped into the truck and took off.

Smith called police, who later found the truck at Harbison Avenue and Tackawanna Street in the Northeast. That's an eight mile ride away.

"The keys were still in the ignition," said Richard Allen, transportation director for Philadelphia Media Holdings, which owns the Inquirer and Daily News. Ten bundles each of the Inquirer and Daily News were left untouched.

In June 2007, driver Christopher Pearo was shot during a robbery in Southwest Philadelphia that netted $15. In September, Dante Robinson of Southwest Philadelphia was convicted by a jury of attempted murder and related offenses.

Otherwise, such incidents are rare, Allen said.

Even when World Series papers were gobbled up like hotcakes, the only problem involved some fans grabbing papers from a hawker after the parade, he said.

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