This took place on April 9, 2010 at my office in Tacoma (6th Ave district):
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http://forum.opencarry.org/forums/showthread.php?72557-Drew-during-an-attempted-auto-theft-prowl
At around 9am this morning I was in my office, with my co-workers (the owner and his wife, and our secretary) and watched a car pull in to our parking lot through the back window of our building. The guy gets out and starts to fiddle with the door lock of another employee's truck. The secretary tells me "Go, go, go!!!! He's trying to steal it!" I run to our side door and exit it, and when I got to the corner of the building (roughly 30ft from the guy, with a clear line of sight), I said in a loud voice, "CAN I HELP YOU?!?" (I did not know for sure at this point that he had ill intentions, as he could have been a friend or relative of the trucks owner, and had been given instructions to borrow the truck, or that something of his was going to be leftthere for him to pick up.)
He didn't verbally respond, but instead ditched the truck (he had JUST gotten the door open) and began running back towards the open door on his vehicle. As he did this, I began running to the vehicles (which were parked next to each other, facing opposite directions), my boss was a few feet behind me. AsI approachedthe rear of his vehicle (I'm still at a full-sprint) I noticed he was fiddling with something near the center console, and I believed it was the shift-lever, but worried that it could have been him trying to access a weapon, I drew my Sig P220ST that I was concealing under my suitcoat, and began shouting for him to "Freeze!" (In retrospect, a "Show me your hands!" or "Shut off the car!" would have probably been better). He glances over his shoulder at the barrel of the Sig (wonder if he saw the mouth of the 230-grain Ranger T-series pointed at him), found "D" on the shifter finally, and peeled off away from me. I paralleled him down the parking lot (another 75 feet, or so) and he kept looking at me trying to see where I was (my Sig was still in my hands). He exited the parking lot and turned right onto the side street that it's on, driving opposite of my direction.
We got the plate number, vehicle & suspect description and called it all in. The detective that later talked to the victim (my co-worker) thought it was great that the suspect got a gun pulled on him during the incident, and jokingly said I should have shot out his tires... (jokingly, though I'd be lying if the thought didn't cross my mind during the incident, haha!). They have yet to locate the suspect, and I gave my statement over the phone to an officer that called back about 45 minutes after it took place. I made sure to update the suspect's clothing description to leather jacket and blue jeans with a brown stain (the officer laughs).
Outcomes:
1) No one got hurt.
2) Only damage caused was the plastic cover that holds the lock mechanism in place on the truck. No property or vehicle stolen.
3) The BG did get away, for now, but heknows he's not welcome in our parking lot anymore.
4) I was satisfied with my response to the incident (and that it was so automatic), and confident in my ability to respond to whatever might come up in the future.
5) An all-stainless Sig with a .45 caliber hole at the end is one helluva visual deterrent.
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That evening, I retired the chambered round, and wrote the date on it with a Sharpie. I figure that round had more than served its desired purpose. And it's a reminder to me to always be ready and willing to respond. I hope to never have anything like that happen again, but if it does.....
Oh, and a few days later, they had my boss (who was right behind me in the parking lot) do a photo lineup, so it appears as if they did have a suspect in custody. I was unavailable at the time, but they cancelled the appt they had to have me do the same lineup a few days later, so I'm guessing the guy plead-out.
-G20