A 38-year-old man was arrested Tuesday night after a Gilmer man said he caught him trying to steal his truck tractor and trailer.
According to an Odessa Police Department report, someone called 911 from the Knights Inn on west Interstate 20 around 8 p.m. Tuesday about a disturbance.
When police arrived, the Gilmer man told officers that he left his 2017 Peterbuilt 587 running to do a system shutdown while he was taking unloading his groceries and when he got back he found a man sitting in the driver’s seat trying to drive off with the truck and the attached belly dump trailer, the report stated.
The trucker said he pulled the man out and the man started to walk away just as officers arrived, the report stated.
The officers detained the man, who was identified as Luis Arturo Lopez, of Odessa. He told officers his boss had asked him to pick up the truck and trailer, but wasn’t able to prove his story, the report stated.
Officers noticed the power/air lines were not connected to the trailer and the trailer’s landing gear was down. They also saw there were tire drag marks in the grown where the truck had been put into drive and dragged the trailer, according to the report.
Lopez was arrested on suspicion of theft of property valued at more than $150,000, but less than $300,000, a Class 2 felony punishable by a prison sentence of two to 20 years. He remained in the Ector County jail Wednesday night on a $40,000 surety bond.
Online jail records show Lopez was released from jail last week after posting a $225 surety bond in a public intoxication case.
