By Jim Clark

Somerville police officers were dispatched to the parking lot of Green Cab of Somerville in the early hours of last Saturday on reports that one of their cabs had been stolen.

Earlier, the dispatcher from Green Cab dialed 911 and spoke with the dispatcher to report the stolen cab.

The dispatcher was reportedly able to track the stolen cab with GPS and gave the location to the 911 operator in real time. The location of the cab at the time of the call was near the Target store on Somerville Ave.

Officers immediately responded, however, the cab was not in the area of Target. The 911 operator was able to relay that the new location of the stolen cab was McGrath Highway and Pearl St. Responding units converged to the new location and were able to find and stop the stolen cab in the area of McGrath Highway and Broadway, police said.

The stolen cab was stopped with a single occupant in the driver seat. The occupant was later identified as Max Barnes of Somerville. He was removed from the driver seat and placed in handcuffs.

The cab driver that was assigned the cab was able to get to the location to retrieve his cab, at which time he told police that he drove to Green Cab to pay his monthly lease fee to operate the cab that was stolen.

According to reports, the cab driver was inside Green Cab headquarters, when the dispatcher informed him that his cab was missing from where it was left parked.

Barnes was placed under arrest and transported to police headquarters where he was charged with larceny of a motor vehicle and receiving a stolen motor vehicle.