Posted on 01/21/2007 10:18:37 AM PST by seowulf
LAKE STEVENS, Wash. - A good Samaritan who stopped to help a car accident victim was nearly punished for his good deed when that accident victim tried to run off with his truck. But it turned out, the car thief had picked the wrong guy.
Clint Lucas of Lake Stevens was driving in Bothell when he saw a car spin out of control and crash into a ditch.
He stopped to see if everyone was OK. But that's when the driver got out and jumped in Clint's new $40,000 Ford truck.
In an instant, Lucas decided no one was going to steal his truck.
"You know I work really hard for the stuff I have," he said. "And I wasn't going to stand by and watch my brand new truck get stolen for no reason. I was trying to help the guy and that's how he repaid me."
So he ran after it and jumped in the back bed.
"And I didn't know how to get him to stop. So my reaction was to kick in the back window," he said.
Lucas, a construction project manager, used his steel-toed boots to break the window while the runaway driver swerved back and forth to try and knock him out of the truck.
"I had some construction plans in the back and I tried to get him to stop by hitting him with them through the back window," he said.
As speeds reached 70 miles per hour, Lucas grabbed a trowel from a bucket of cement and started clubbing the truck thief.
"I think that scared him more than anything, so he stopped the truck at that point," Lucas said.
The frightened driver started running on foot with Lucas right on his heels.
"I ran over and I tackled him to the ground and made sure I had him subdued, while a couple other gentlemen helped me get some zip ties on him," he said.
Lucas and two witnesses zip-tied the suspect and held him until cops arrived.
The truck is now in the shop and Lucas has a message for the man who tried to steal it.
"Don't take a guy's Ford pickup again," he said, "you don't know what's going to happen."
It turns out the runaway driver was wanted on arrested warrants and parole violations. He is in police custody.
This has been a bad few days for the bad guys!!!
Clint Lucas is my hero this week! Got-r-done, and I hope that crack-head thief is done, too.
Heinlein did some good work, didn't he.
Quite likely the dog would've got through the broken back window and put a vice-grip on the perp's balls.
Lucas and two witnesses zip-tied the suspect and held him until cops arrived.
If they'd only have known then that he was a career criminal, they should've "accidently" tightened the zip ties just enough to cut off all circulation.
Here's another happy ending from www.thestate.com in Columbia, SC.
The Associated Press
Published January 17, 2007
A man trying to steal a car at gunpoint from a couple ended up being shot himself, Richland County Sheriff Leon Lott says.
Harold Levar Jeffcoat, 29, was arrested Sunday at the hospital where he was being treated for a gunshot wound to the buttocks, Lott said.
Jeffcoat was shot Saturday night after he stuck a gun into the stomach of a man getting into his car at a Wal-Mart in suburban northeast Richland County and demanded his keys, deputies said.
A woman in the passenger seat pulled a gun from the glove compartment and fired five shots at Jeffcoat, hitting him once, investigators said.
Lott is calling the couple heroes. The sheriff said police don't encourage people to go out and "just start shooting," but they do want people to protect themselves.
Jeffcoat also was wanted for at least nine other armed robberies across Columbia, Lott said.
Obviously, there is a need for better gun control in this state......(/sarcasm)
Seriously, anyone who plans to use a handgun, should work at developing the skills to know how to use it, especially the Dick Chenney rule of fire arms safety, which is to know what is down range from the target at which you are shooting. Stress during a life & death confrontation will require utmost training if you are to perform appropriately. Four missed shots in a major shopping parking lot could have resulted in a horrible headline.
Sounds like a sensible sheriff. That county had better hang on to him.
I was thinking the same thing - man, if there isn't a Country song in this one I don't know where there is one.
And always have some zip-ties handy should the need arise to restrain some miscreant.
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