If you're arrested and issued a citation for drinking in public, the best way to get home from the police station is probably to take a cab. Or, if you're short on cash, call a friend or take the bus. What you shouldn't do, as a 33-year-old Arizona man learned this weekend, is steal an ambulance parked in front of the police station from which you were just released.

Sunday morning, Cesar Garcia was arrested for drinking a beer inside a grocery store in Chandler, Arizona. He was taken to the town's police station, issued a citation and released. So far, so good. Then he spotted the ambulance outside.

“It appears that Garcia did not want to walk home,” Chandler Police Sergeant Joe Favazzo said.

Garcia stole the ambulance, which was empty and parked in front of the station in response to an unrelated call, and drove it to his home in nearby Guadalupe. Police officers traced the van via GPS, and alerted officers at the Tempe Police station that it was heading their way.

“When [Garcia] got to Tempe and officers attempted to stop the ambulance, he failed to stop, took off and drove to his house,” Tempe Police spokesperson Mike Pooley told the Daily Mail Online. “I don't know what was going through his mind.”

Garcia eventually made it to his home, but Tempe police officers weren't far behind. After a “physical altercation” with police, Garcia was arrested, for the second time that day.

He was charged with felony motor vehicle theft, two counts of aggravated assault on a police officer, resisting arrest, felony flight, and aggravated driving under the influence.

[Top image via Shutterstock]