Friday morning last week I walked out of the hospital where I work and got into my Jeep Wrangler soft top. I turned around to look at my back seat and noticed that the pile of stuff I had placed on my seat was knocked into the floorboard and the right rear window was unzipped and hanging down. Twelve hours earlier I had used that pile of stuff to cover up my Colt M4 (with EOTech XPS holographic sight). The M4 was, of course, gone.
In my many years of owning firearms, I had never, ever, one single time left any long gun in any personal vehicle unattended. This was the very first time I'd ever taken this chance and I thought there was no way that I could be so unlucky as to get my vehicle burglarized on the one night that I happened to have a valuable item inside it instead of what I have always left inside my Jeep, which is absolutely nothing of value.
Fast forward to yesterday. I received a phone call from the detective working my case. He told me my weapon had been recovered along with the EOTech holographic sight, and since they aren't even close to having a suspect yet, he planned to transfer my property back to me in 10-14 days.
Apparently in the city I work in, a city of about 52,000 people, a crime trend has been going on over the last 2-3 years. It seems that the urban youths have decided they have nothing better to do than to target vehicles that are either unlocked or otherwise easy to get into for money and other valuable items. The area I work in is not the worst area in the city, but it certainly is in what I'd call a "lower-class" area. Suffice it to say that the area is full of these urban youths with not much more to do than steal things and shoot at each other.
Spare me the scolding, I've received it from myself already ten fold. The only reason I had it in my vehicle is because I'd been using it earlier that day right before work for some sight zeroing and misjudged the time I had before work. I decided to chance it and figured I could get away with leaving my prized possession in my vehicle ONE TIME. I obviously thought wrong.
I made an error in judgment and it paired itself up with some unbelievably bad luck. It was then followed up with some amazing luck. It turns out my weapon was found wrapped in a blanket and stuffed in a hollowed out tree trunk in a wooded area behind some businesses in the same city it was stolen in. The same urban youths also stole a firefighter's pickup truck from the fire station while he was on a call. The truck was discovered unoccupied behind a local business, and while walking around in the immediate area, a police officer found my blanket-wrapped Colt M4 with the EOTech still firmly attached.
The detective told me that he thinks the people who stole my weapon were probably initially excited about their find, but after a few days probably became quite nervous about having something like that. He stated that nothing that had been stolen from the inside of any vehicles recently even approached the value and exotic nature of my piece of property. He said he felt like the value and uniqueness of my rifle probably helped me them locate it because he believes the youths who are committing these crimes were simply "out of their league" when they took it. He believes this led to them ditching it in a wooded area behind those businesses.
In conclusion, let this be a lesson to any of you who may have become the slightest bit relaxed in the security of your weapons and other valuables. Most of you probably have not, and I'm sure you'll waste no time in making that known, but some of us are human and make errors in judgment. I found out the hard way that it takes ONE TIME to have your property stolen. 99 times out of 100 I may have been able to get away with my error. This happened to be the one time that I didn't. Lucky for me, it also happened to be the one time out of 100 that the police recovered my weapon intact in less than a week.
Thank you all for reading, and if you can, please take a lesson from my experience and pass it along.
In my many years of owning firearms, I had never, ever, one single time left any long gun in any personal vehicle unattended. This was the very first time I'd ever taken this chance and I thought there was no way that I could be so unlucky as to get my vehicle burglarized on the one night that I happened to have a valuable item inside it instead of what I have always left inside my Jeep, which is absolutely nothing of value.
Fast forward to yesterday. I received a phone call from the detective working my case. He told me my weapon had been recovered along with the EOTech holographic sight, and since they aren't even close to having a suspect yet, he planned to transfer my property back to me in 10-14 days.
Apparently in the city I work in, a city of about 52,000 people, a crime trend has been going on over the last 2-3 years. It seems that the urban youths have decided they have nothing better to do than to target vehicles that are either unlocked or otherwise easy to get into for money and other valuable items. The area I work in is not the worst area in the city, but it certainly is in what I'd call a "lower-class" area. Suffice it to say that the area is full of these urban youths with not much more to do than steal things and shoot at each other.
Spare me the scolding, I've received it from myself already ten fold. The only reason I had it in my vehicle is because I'd been using it earlier that day right before work for some sight zeroing and misjudged the time I had before work. I decided to chance it and figured I could get away with leaving my prized possession in my vehicle ONE TIME. I obviously thought wrong.
I made an error in judgment and it paired itself up with some unbelievably bad luck. It was then followed up with some amazing luck. It turns out my weapon was found wrapped in a blanket and stuffed in a hollowed out tree trunk in a wooded area behind some businesses in the same city it was stolen in. The same urban youths also stole a firefighter's pickup truck from the fire station while he was on a call. The truck was discovered unoccupied behind a local business, and while walking around in the immediate area, a police officer found my blanket-wrapped Colt M4 with the EOTech still firmly attached.
The detective told me that he thinks the people who stole my weapon were probably initially excited about their find, but after a few days probably became quite nervous about having something like that. He stated that nothing that had been stolen from the inside of any vehicles recently even approached the value and exotic nature of my piece of property. He said he felt like the value and uniqueness of my rifle probably helped me them locate it because he believes the youths who are committing these crimes were simply "out of their league" when they took it. He believes this led to them ditching it in a wooded area behind those businesses.
In conclusion, let this be a lesson to any of you who may have become the slightest bit relaxed in the security of your weapons and other valuables. Most of you probably have not, and I'm sure you'll waste no time in making that known, but some of us are human and make errors in judgment. I found out the hard way that it takes ONE TIME to have your property stolen. 99 times out of 100 I may have been able to get away with my error. This happened to be the one time that I didn't. Lucky for me, it also happened to be the one time out of 100 that the police recovered my weapon intact in less than a week.
Thank you all for reading, and if you can, please take a lesson from my experience and pass it along.
Take a lesson from my mistake: A stolen (and recovered) AR-15
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