Sometime My Life is Like a Movie part 2

Little did I know when I moved to Los Angeles to attend film school that I would have experiences that I have only seen in movies.

It was a bright and sunny Sunday when I personally recovered my own stolen vehicle.

In April of 2015, I came home late from work and school, parked my truck at the end of the street, staggered home and into bed. The next morning, which was only a few hours later, I walked back to the end of the street, however, my truck was gone!

Honestly, I was so tired that I questioned myself on whether I had parked at that end of the street or not. I spent ten minutes wandering around the neighborhood in a daze looking for my truck. But it was gone. I remember the voice in my head chanting, ‘this isn’t real, this isn’t real. Except that it was real. It’s difficult to explain the emotions I was feeling. My head was spinning as I did a mental inventory of everything I had in the vehicle. There were tools, and a tarp, my emergency first aid kit, a sunshade and most importantly, several Beach Boys cd’s.

Once the reality finally sank into my head, I made my way back home and called the police department to report my truck as stolen. This is where the frustration set in. In order to file a police report I had to go to the nearest police station. I talked a friend into picking me up and taking me to the police station.

I then had to wait twenty minutes to speak with a detective. He started to take the report but when he asked for the license plate number, he stopped writing and said he couldn’t take a report because the vehicle wasn’t registered in California.

I found this to be absolutely ridiculous. If I was visiting from out of state and my vehicle was stolen or broken into the Los Angeles Police Department would not take a report? He gave me an answer that made no sense at all, but I realized that arguing was not going to get me anywhere. So, my friend and I trudged to the DMV where I had to register a vehicle that I wasn’t certain I would ever see again.

You may be wondering why my vehicle wasn’t registered in the state of California even though that was where I lived and worked. At the time I was a student and not certain that I would be staying in the state when I graduated. In addition, I often would travel back to my home state for long periods during the year. In other words, I was too poor and too lazy to change it over.

But change it over I did. Then back to the police station we went where a different detective came and took the report. He then gave me a copy of said report. This is important to note. I contacted my insurance company, gave them the report number and answered all of their questions: yes, locked the doors. No, there wasn’t an alarm installed as it was a 1989 Ford Ranger pick-up that looked like it had been immersed in a swamp and never cleaned. I loved that truck.

Eventually, the insurance company was happy with my answers and since I had full coverage insurance which included incidents like this, they authorized me to have a rental vehicle for 30 days. YAY! Two weeks later, the event that I mentioned at the beginning of this chapter took place.

It was a lovely warm and sunny, but not hot, Sunday afternoon and I had a homework assignment to complete. I needed to visit a museum and write a paper about the art that I observed. I climbed into my rental vehicle which happened to be a brand new Nissan Frontier and headed out for the museum of my choice, The Getty.

I turned the corner and drove two blocks when a gray Ford Ranger pickup pulled out in front of me. I kid you not, I was stunned. It was MY Ford Ranger pickup. And I knew it was mine because it still had the out of state license plate and in the rear window the sticker for my school. My heart started pounding. I took a breath, relaxed, and picked up my phone.

“911, what’s your emergency?”

“My truck was stolen two weeks ago and now I am following it down the road.”

I gave the operator the police report number as the report was sitting on the seat next to me.

As I was talking to the dispatcher, my truck took a right turn and so did I. He (the little thief) flipped a u-turn. So, did I. And the chase was on.

I would never recommend to anyone to follow a stolen vehicle. However, I feel that personally, I had the advantage. To begin with, I knew that the Ford topped out at around 56 miles hour. Seriously, 56 miles per hour. The Nissan I was driving was capable of 150 miles per hour. Secondly, when I was in high school and a few years beyond, I trained police dogs for the sheriff’s office in Portland, Oregon. During that time, I was trained in pursuit and precision driving. I had been involved in several high-speed chases, of which this was not.

I relayed each turn we made to the dispatcher until “the little thief” pulled out into on-coming traffic and I deemed it un safe to follow. Once the traffic had cleared I made an attempt to find the truck, but he had disappeared. I relayed all of this to the dispatcher as well.

At that point, she asked me to pull over and wait for further instructions. I pulled into a parking lot and listened to the silence on the other end of the phone. After no more than three minutes the dispatcher spoke to me and said that the officers had my vehicle. I was very excited to find out that eight police cars and a helicopter had responded to the call. They were able to box him into a junkyard and take him into custody.

The dispatcher then asked me to drive to the scene and speak with the officers. We hung up and I drove back to the intersection where I had lost the truck. Apparently, “the little thief” had turned the opposite way as me and he saw police cars coming his direction, he flipped another u-turn and tried to run, but as I said, he didn’t get too far.

I arrived at the scene and parked in a nearby gas station. As I got out of the rental truck an officer approached me. The first thing he asked was, “what department did you work for?” I, of course, was surprised by this question and asked for clarification. The officer said that when I was giving directions over the phone the dispatcher had connected me to the radio, so I was talking to the officers directly.

There is a separate language and way of saying things that is unique to police officers. I know, understand, and speak that language. I told the officer about my work training K-9’s and the things that I did at the Sheriff’s Office. At that moment, he and I had a connection. He showed me the Ford, which had been wrecked at least twice. The entire interior door panel on the passenger side had been ripped apart. The steering column had been destroyed. How the kid managed to get the truck started, the officer and I couldn’t figure out.

In addition, “the little thief” had thrown away everything that belonged to me and had smoked crack in the truck. The interior roof was a mess.

I got my truck back. What was left of it. I had it towed to the insurance yard and eventually got a payout that helped me purchase a newer vehicle.

And “the little thief”? Well, he was 15 at the time with a previous track record. I never had to go to court as the police reports and he fact he was caught red-handed was enough to put him in juvenile detention for three years. When he turned 18, I received a phone call from the prosecutor’s office notifying me that this young man was getting out and would be in the neighborhood once again.

By then, I had moved away and wasn’t bothered by the fact he would be around again. Though I did call my friends and warn them. I’d like to think that he learned his lesson and would behave himself. However, the fact that he had the vehicle for two weeks and his parents or friends never said anything makes me think he grew up and lived with people who just didn’t care.

In this one instance though, he found out that you can’t outrun the law or The Lynda.