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Following up on the earlier thread #msg-1013933 about my wife spotting a thief robbing her church and the pastor's car: The perp pled guilty last week and was fined $800.
A few years ago, my wife was pulled over on I-66 doing 92 in a 75 at 5 o'clock in the morning. It was a rural area on one of those stretches where you don't see another car for minutes at a time. Well, they got her with radar. Over 90 is automatically reckless driving. We spent $2,000 on an attorney who was successful in having the charge reduced, and we were fined $1,000. Pretty expensive, but fair.
Because, you know, in today's world it's worse by far to drive 15 miles over the speed limit on a desolate back-country road than it is to be caught red-handed burglarizing a church office and car.
Gold is $1,581/oz today. When it hits $2,000, it will be up 26.5%. Let's see how long that takes. - De 3/11/2013 - ANSWER: 7 Years, 5 Months
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The above is a reply to the following message:
Re: AMAZON deletes 1 star reviews of Clinton's new book...
By: Decomposed
in
POPE IV
Thu, 14 Sep 17 1:16 AM
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Msg. 34005 of
47202
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Nemo:
re: "I gave them chit and mentioned my lawyer friend, and I had a new tire in a day"
Speaking of Amazon, here's what I think is an interesting Amazon story never before shared - mostly because it only happened last week when I had a ton of other things going on - and because it's a complicated story that takes a while to tell. As a result of last week, my wife is now being hailed as a hero by her office.
She (my wife) works in a church that has two buildings (A Meeting House and, I assume, a Sanctuary) adjoined via an external hallway. The players in this story: My wife (obviously); Susan and Aaron: the church pastors; Mary Ann: the business manager; a 'special visitor' from Amazon; several Fairfax County police officers.
Since the story is long and complicated, I'm going to let my wife speak to the part that she's already put in writing. She didn't tell the whole story, but she did set down enough to jog her memory... should she ever need a refresher for reasons that will soon be apparent.
I'll continue where she stops and augment her tale to fill in key (for you) details she didn't think were necessary or appropriate given that her writeup may be read in court one day.
While standing in the church house lounge, I happened to look out the window and saw a man looking around in Susan’s car. The front passenger door was open, and he was leaning in like he was searching for something.
Not stated: He was an extremely skinny, tall, heavily tattooed black man, in his upper twenties. He looked like a gang banger. I asked my wife if she was just letting her red neck show. "What if he was wearing a suit?" I asked her.
"What would he look like then?" "Snoop Dog," she said. Okay. Point made.
I took a step to the side, and noticed that there was an 'Enterprise Rentals' van out front, so I thought perhaps Susan had requested some sort of service for her car or something else (perhaps a rental to pick her up?), so I grabbed the package left for her about 5-10 minutes earlier by Fedex and started walking toward the Meeting House with it. The man was only out of my sight for a matter of a minute or less.
When I stepped outside, the car was once again closed, and the man had started walking toward the Enterprise van. I called out to him, asking “Can I help you with something?”
He responded, “Yeah, I need to deliver a package, but the door is locked,” motioning toward the double doors to the Meeting House.
I responded, “Who is the package for?”
He responded, “Susan.”
I responded, “OK, well I can walk over there with you, because I need to drop this off with her, too” (indicating the package I was carrying).
He walked around the front of his van, and along the front sidewalk, meeting me at the Meeting House doors. I noted that the right-hand door was not fully closed (and thus, just needed to be pulled to open – definitely not locked). I went in with him, he handed me the package, and asked where the restroom was. I pointed out the restroom by the kitchen to him and left the packages outside Susan’s office door.
If you have the impression that my wife was gullible or calm, that's incorrect. She was VERY suspicious and getting increasingly nervous. But she's written what occurred, not what she was thinking or experiencing.
I then walked to the Session Room, passing the restroom in question (he had not closed the door, and was standing in front of the toilet, with his back to me – I assume using the toilet), and pulled Susan out of her meeting with Aaron, Katie, and Billy.
This isn't a meeting my wife would normally interrupt. Susan therefore knew immediately, either from my wife's tone or from her face that something urgent was happening. My wife said "We have an intruder." Susan said, "What kind? Another mouse?" My wife said, "Noooo. This is the two-legged variety."
As Susan and I walked back toward her office, I quietly told her that I thought I had seen someone rifling through her car. She quickly went to her office to get her keys. As she did that, I noted that the man was out by his van again, and I was concerned he might be leaving. I told Susan that it appears her car was already unlocked, since he’d been going through it, and she and I went outside. I stayed until the walkway roof, while she went to her car to see if it was indeed unlocked, and if anything was missing.
She found the car unlocked, and things moved, so she came back to her office. I went with her. We called Aaron from the meeting and explained the situation – we wanted a male figure out there with us, just in case, as the man had not yet left. Before we stepped back outside, the man came back in and again asked where the restroom was, and I gave him directions again. He went to the restroom.
Note: That's twice.
Susan was getting ready to call 911 (or may already have been on the phone with them – I am not sure), and was continuing to search her desk for her keys. I went back to the church house to get Mary Ann.
Once Mary Ann and I got back outside (I had filled her in on the events), Mary Ann, Aaron, and I were confronting the man with what I saw. He claimed that all I saw when I came out was his zipping up his pants, because he was ‘using the bathroom’ (i.e., peeing on our grass).
That's the THIRD time. As my wife put it, 'The guy must have a bladder the size of a peanut!' LOL...
I explained that I had seen him before coming outside – through the church house lounge window – telling him that I had seen him leaning into Susan’s car.
Per my wife, this was the "Awshit!" moment for our dear friend. His eyes got big, his "Snoop Dog" face went white, and his hair may have stood on end for all that I know. The story continues:
He called me a liar. I reiterated that I was only telling him what I saw – his leaning into Susan's car like he was looking for something.
He again called my wife a liar.
Mary Ann, who I gather to be something of a bulldog when she's annoyed, bristled at this. She leaned into his face: "My staff are NOT LIARS!"" she hissed. Aaron and Mary Ann continued speaking to the man.
Susan saw that things were escalating a bit and tapped my wife on the shoulder. "Go get your gun,"
she said. My wife went to do so, but . . .
Shortly after this, the Fairfax County Police Department arrived.
That's the end of my wife's report. Here's what else happened:
The police were now present, so my wife didn't fetch her gun. I think that's a really good thing. They took a report from my wife, then from Aaron and Susan. When they started with Aaron, Mary Ann asked Judy to go get her metal detector so that they might find Susan's keys - presumed to be in the grass where the man had supposedly first started peeing. (Sidebar: Believe it or not, my wife has her metal detector at the church. It was brought in a while back because the church was interested in finding some sort of metal marker on the grounds. I don't remember if this was of historic importance or if there was another reason. Needless to say, folks at the church were surprised and impressed to hear that my wife was there in just a few minutes with a metal detector to find the missing keys.)
But the "perp" continued to protest that my wife was lying. Susan informed the police that her car was now unlocked (it hadn't been) and that her keys were missing. The perp interrupted her: "You probably just need to look through more of the drawers in your desk," he said.
Interesting. Susan decided to check more thoroughly and, miracle of miracles, she found her keys! Not where she'd usually keep them, but they were there.
So how many times had this guy been in the building, I wonder, all without once passing my wife at the main entrance??
When Susan returned, the police had searched the man and discovered Susan's checkbook was in his possession. It had been taken from Susan's office.
The man was handcuffed and put in one of the squad cars. Susan checked her car and discovered that a hundred dollars was missing from her glove box.
About this time, the police informed Susan that the man had confessed to stealing her keys and checkbook. They said he had asked if he could speak to her - to apologize. She went to see him and he did apologize. He told her he had never done anything like this before, never would again, and that he had a little girl at home who he was trying to support and that's why he had done this. If she'd just please let him go . . . ??
Susan told the police that she had discovered a hundred dollars missing from her car. The man said he had NOT taken anything from the car and that he didn't even have a hundred dollars, but that he would pay her a hundred dollars if she would only drop the charges. (Yep, that's what he actually said. He doesn't even have a hundred but he'll pay it to her.) She told the police to arrest him. Upon hearing this, the police searched the man again and . . . found a hundred dollar bill tucked into one of his socks.
By this time, the man was a blubbering mess. He said he'd never EVER done anything wrong before. He a good boy! (Okay, I'm just saying that last part.)
There was an empty water bottle normally on a compartment in Susan's car that the thief appeared to have moved. The police took it in order to try to get prints.
And that's pretty much the whole story. My wife didn't document what happened after the arrival of police because she figured that they could testify to that.
Susan is quite delighted with how my wife handled things. In addition to not losing her checkbook, her keys or the hundred dollar bill, her purse was untouched in the back seat of her car. The perp had never gotten that far. He was, everyone assumes, about to look in the back when my wife took him by surprise and changed his plans.
In my opinion, there won't be a trial. The guy already confessed to everything except stealing the money. And the evidence for that is so overwhelming that . . . wouldn't a public defender recommend he just throw himself on the mercy of the court and plead guilty? I expect so, but there's no telling. The guy is no Einstein, that's for sure. He might insist that he's innocent.
The church is now buying some external security cameras. They'd have been useful, given what just happened. Additionally, the church is preparing to be an emergency shelter for indigents this winter and the cameras will probably be needed. There are bound to be some more "events."
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