 A neighbor snapped this photo of Ken Cavallon restraining a would-be thief outside his Seattle home (courtesy: KOMO-TV) |
Frustrated by numerous auto thefts in his neighborhood, a football coach took matters into his own hands when thieves tried to steal his truck, violently ripping one of them from a getaway car before calling police.
Ken Cavallon of Seattle said he swung into action early Tuesday morning when his wife saw three people trying to break into his truck outside their home.
“I realized, enough is enough, so I came flying up the hill,” Cavallon told KOMO-TV.
The coach grabbed a young man from inside the getaway vehicle as it began to pull away.
“The window was down just a little bit, so I ripped the window out, it shatters all over the ground,” Cavallon said. “I try to pull him out of the car and the seat belt gets in the way, so I open up the car door, and as the guy’s driving the get away car away, I yank him out of the car, throw him to the ground, pick him up, slam him on the hood of my truck, and just held him there.”
Neighbor Thomas Oates, who corroborated the story, snapped a photograph of Cavallon with the 20-year-old would-be thief in his grip.
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“Ken took the window out of the car, and reached in, and yanked the little puke out of the window of a moving car,” Oates said. “It was unreal.”
Cavallon added: “I had to yell at [the thief] at one point, and I said, ‘dude, I’m three times your weight, and twice your strength, so don’t even try.'”
Cavallon let him go only when police arrived at his home in the city’s Queen Anne neighborhood.
Seattle Police Officer Rich Pruitt gladly took the 20-year-old, but encouraged others not to emulate Cavallon.
“Running outside, and taking on multiple suspects, I would advise against,” Pruitt said “In this case, it did work out, and he was able to catch one of the bad guys.”
But Cavallon hopes it will make a difference in a neighborhood plagued with car thefts.
“They seem to think this is easy pickins, and we’re just not going to let it be easy pickins anymore,” he said.
