In Pursuit.....

Well, it's been awhile since my last blog, but go figure I am so busy that I don't have much extra time. But I had to blog about our exciting last two days!

When Zak and I returned home Sunday, we noticed his hard top for his jeep was no longer where we left it. He prefers to drive his jeep without the top, and the top is ridiculously heavy, so you assume that would defer people from stealing it, right? Well, I'm gonna say no....

We immediately called the police and filed a report. The value of the top is $3000, so this episode of theft was a felony charge. We started asking questions around the neighborhood, and low and behold we got a vehicle description of the perpetrator. We continued our investigation, which led to a name, an address, and even a phone number! Just a kid who needed a top for his own jeep....saw an opportunity for a 'free' one I guess!

Well, we gave all of our investigative information to the police so they could add it to the report. They went by the address Sunday evening, but no one was home. So that led to Zak checking it out after work last night. Guess what? The jeep was there, and guess what?? His top was ON IT!!! So he called the police, they advised him to wait down the block around the corner.

Before the police could arrive, the kid started to leave!!! Zak waved him down and told him "hey man, that's my jeep top, you need to give back - I know your name, I know where you live, the police know everything & they're on their way, so lets just make this easy, and give me my top back" The kid denied the whole thing, and fled the scene.

This led to a high speed chase...(haha j/k, but he did follow him) Zak was on the phone w/the sherriff's department the whole time, giving them turn by turn locations...unfortunately the kid lost him because he chose to drive fast in a neighborhood, and Zak wasn't about to do that! Zak came home, but the police knew what was going on and had an APB out on the vehicle.

About 9 pm last night, we got a call from the police, and they CAUGHT HIM! We met them where they were with our jeep with no top. When we got there, Zak and I had already decided that there was no way we could press charges on a young kid....regardless of the circumstances, a felony charge haunts you the rest of your life, and we've all had our crazy days of doing stupid stuff. Well, the police officer thought we needed to press charges. We gave in, they put the handcuffs on the kid. He sat back in the police car and i truly believe he was scared out of his mind. He didn't look like a trouble-maker kind of kid...

He finally admitted to taking the jeep top, but in order for us to get it back (if we pressed charges) we would have to wait for a warrant from a judge...but if we didn't press charges, we could just have it back right then. We wanted it back, so we are now the proud owners of a jeep top...again!

I really feel like we were just a part in a kids life lesson. His mother ended up hearing Zak's messages (remember how we had his number?? haha) She called so devastated, but so grateful to us for not sending her son to jail. She let us know she was a praying mother, and never would have expected that behavior from her son. We were happy with our decision to not press charges, and the incident led to a very happy ending!