Good guys vs. bad guys

A few weeks ago, the Omaha World-Herald ran a series of stories about one family in Omaha that has 633 criminal convictions against 35 family members since 1979. We know that nationwide, a vast majority of police calls originate from a very small number of addresses. In yesterday's McCook Gazette, the front page headline detailed the exploits of a 21- year-old who escaped over a fence from the Work Ethic Camp, stole a car in McCook and was eventually apprehended in Wyoming. He was in prison for a botched robbery attempt of the Farmer's State Bank in Wallace, Nebraska.

You may have also read in this newspaper of an auto theft that occurred in McCook a couple of nights ago. The car stolen belonged to a good friend of mine who related the story to me. He was awakened around 3 a.m. by the barks of his dog. Thinking the dog needed to go outside, he let him out but the dog kept barking so he let him back in. The dog continued to bark and even though my friend was still more asleep than awake, he thought there might be a prowler in the area so he began going from window to window to see if he could see anyone. When he looked out the front window, it looked like his car was rolling backwards from where it was parked in the driveway. He rubbed his eyes a couple of times to make sure he was seeing what he thought he was seeing and sure enough, he was. Then he also saw that the interior light of the car was on and he knew someone was in it. My friend has a very hot sports car and, unfortunately, he had left the keys in the ignition and the doors unlocked, something he said he had done many times before but won't do again. The car thief was pushing it out of the driveway onto the street by putting the gear in neutral and pushing the car backwards with his foot. Once he was in the street, he turned the car on and sped away.

My friend quickly woke up his wife, told her what was happening, that he was going to take her car to try and chase down the car thief and for her to call 911, which she did. As he was driving through the neighborhood, a city police officer pulled in behind him and, amazingly, he met his car going in the opposite direction at a slow rate of speed with the stereo playing loud enough that my friend heard it. He rolled his window down, pointed to the car, yelled out that that was his car and the police office made a U-turn and began to pursue it. A chase ensued and the car thief eventually ran the car into a ditch and was apprehended at gunpoint It's believed the car thief just recently got out of jail.

This is a story that is repeated time and time again in locations across America and it's the one thing that separates the good guys from the bad guys. The bad guys are out looking for crimes to commit and the good guys aren't. The family from Omaha wasn't deterred by the number of convictions their family members had incurred, they just kept committing more crimes. The escapee from the Work Ethic Camp wasn't deterred from going over the fence and stealing a car because he was a prisoner. And this most recent car thief obviously wasn't deterred from his recent stint in jail either.