Man takes excavator for a joyride, then digs a trench outside supermarket

Workers from the construction site where the machine had been stolen followed it, and they were among a crowd that prevented the driver from leaving.

A man was arrested in Salt Lake City for allegedly driving a stolen excavator a mile on city streets and then using it to dig a trench in front of a supermarket.

Police were alerted shortly after noon Saturday of the unsanctioned digging, a department press release said.

Workers from the construction site where the machine had been stolen followed it, and they were among a crowd that prevented the driver from leaving before police arrived.

The man dug a 15-yard trench in a grassy strip bounding the store’s parking lot, rupturing a water main and destroying fiber-optic cable buried there, and then began breaking up the adjacent sidewalk, the police said. No injuries or traffic accidents were reported there or on route.

Police said the excavator had been left running at the job site where it was stolen, on the other side of Interstate 15 south of downtown Salt Lake City.

The man was arrested on suspicion of theft and criminal mischief. No details of his identity were released.