Ohio police officers might have passed right by a vehicle reported stolen. But the driver accidentally set off the car alarm. Officers ran the plates and discovered the vehicle had been reported stolen out of Cleveland. They then conducted a traffic stop.

The 38-year-old man from Euclid told officers the car wasn’t stolen. He said it was a rental. He admitted, however, that he had kept it past the return date. And according to the dictionary, that starts to sound a lot like the definition of “stolen.”

An explanation officers weren’t expecting

Mayfield police officers asked for more detail. The man explained the car was broken. He said he was determined to repair it before returning it to the rental company. Thief or Midwest nice? You decide.