Chaos and Confusion

On Sunday night, a woman using a drive-through ATM accidentally left her wallet on top of the teller-machine and drove away. About ten minutes later, she realized her mistake and drove back to the bank to get her wallet. As she arrived, a man was just leaving the same ATM she had used. She saw the wallet was no longer on the ATM and was convinced the man had taken it. She and her male passenger jumped out of her car and ran over to the man as he started driving away.

They tried to get him to stop but he sped away as he thought he was being car-jacked by these two screaming maniacs. His quick departure convinced the woman he must be guilty of the wallet theft; Why else would he drive away so quickly? She got back in her car and began to chase him and called 911 to report the "robbery."

At the same time, the man called 911 to report the "attempted car-jacking". Both callers were on the phone with 911 operators -one yelling about being chased by car-jackers, the other screaming about the fleeing wallet robber.

Several police officers responded and were able to stop both cars a few miles away to try to sort out the whole affair. I arrived a few seconds later and pulled in behind a guy in plain clothes who was just pulling up to the stopped cars. At first I thought he was an undercover officer that happened to be in the area who stopped to help out. He then told me he was a citizen that "saw the whole thing" and wanted to help police solve the case. I asked him give me details of the incident and he replied, "I saw two cars driving very fast with police officers chasing them....man, we must have been going about 70 down Indian School." He hadn't seen anything of the incident at the bank, only cars being chased by cops. He joined the chase to tell us he saw a chase. The public can be very helpful in providing police with valuable information but I would encourage some 'helpful' citizens to not engage in a high-speed pursuit in order to tell us he saw a pursuit.

Tell me if something sounds suspicious about this missing juvenile call I heard tonight:

Complainant is mother who last saw 13 year old son leaving with a friend to watch a movie on June 5th.......June 5th????!!!!! That was 24 days ago. I just pictured this concerned mother going about her business for over three weeks and then thinking to herself, "Hmmm, it's been 24 days since my boy left the house -that movie has got to be over by now. That's it, I'm calling police."