BusterStronghart@Gmail.com

Maria and I were in the parking lot of Whole Foods when we observed a purse-snatcher grab and run with a purse belonging to a check-out-lady from the store. He took off like a rocket and was very big, say six feet two or so, and 250 lbs. He ran directly across the highway, though traffic.

The check-out-lady was hysterical, I figured she had just been paid.

I gave chase on foot but he was far too fleet for me; Maria caught up to me with the car and we searched for him for about ten minutes on the other side of a highway. By this time two men in a convertible had joined the chase and the lady had gotten into their car, still screaming--and it was at least five minutes after the purse had been stolen.

The other car went one way, but I understood that it wasn't likely that he would run into a suburban neighborhood. Maria drove along the back of the highway, and I searched behind a Shell Station, in the Sports Central parking lot, a Barnes and Noble parking lot, and various other spots that I thought he might have run to or hidden in.

Suddenly he burst out of some brush, having been flushed out by the men from the other car. I was alone with him and saw a large black man, very terrified, and sweating very hard.

I told him to give me the purse and to head for the hills. But he no longer had the purse; a short time later the other men arrived, and the thief, who had, in my mind, become a victim, was threatening to "go crazy." "Give us the purse," I asked again, but he had already dropped it.

By now three carloads of police had arrived.

"Get down on the ground!"

He obeyed quickly, and was down on his belly, but the cops had drawn their pistols, and now ran to him, and kneed him the back. They weren't gentle.

In the meantime, Maria had found the purse, in tact, and returned it to the lady.

I remarked to Maria, that I found it interesting that when I saw the theft occur, I felt sorry for the check-out lady, having assumed that she had just been paid.

But when I saw the cops knee the frightened thief, guns drawn, my sympathies went to the thief.

To make matters still worse, Maria told me that the lady was not a check-out lady, but rather that she had just been getting into her Mercedes.

mek