Brian Cashman is no car thief, but he reportedly was mistaken for one Friday night.
The New York Yankees general manager was traveling from Yankee Stadium to Connecticut in his white Jeep Wrangler when police mistook him for an armed thief and drew their guns on him, sources told the New York Post’s Natalie Musumeci. The vehicle had been reported stolen last Saturday, but the NYPD had returned it to him earlier this week after discovering it abandoned in the Bronx.
Cashman was on his way to the Norwalk Police Department to process the car as evidence but had to stop for gas in Darien along the way. That’s when the incident occurred, Cashman told the Post.
“I had a welcoming committee descend upon me as I pulled out of that gas station,” he said, per Musumeci.
At the time, Cashman says the police initially were “responding to someone in a white Jeep that was brandishing a gun in a local doctor’s office.” But when the cops ran Cashman’s plates, his Jeep came up as a stolen vehicle because “the NYPD never took me off the stolen car list,” he said.
But Cashman cooperated, and the rest of the 15-minute ordeal went smoothly, the Post said.
“They’re clearly very professional and trained and they asked me to turn my car off, exit the vehicle, walk backwards towards them… they were executing their duty.”
Cashman confirmed his car now has been taken off the stolen car list.
