I arrived home from work at 5:00 on Friday evening to find that Abi wasn't home from school which is unusual, however; she had mentioned that she was planning to catch up with some friends and spend the night away from home so I wasn't particularly concerned, but I figured I'd better hunt her down anyhow so I called her, and she answered, "Hello?"
"Hey, Boo, where are you? Are you spending the night at Sam's?"
"I'm on my way home, and, yes, but that's not why I'm late getting home today. I'm late because I've been at a crime scene."
"A crime scene? Where? What happened?"
"You know the Charter parking lot where there is a fence between the residential homes and school lot?"
"Yeah."
"Well, Sam and I were sitting in my car there talking after school, like we usually do, when this guy in an ill-fitted black suit carrying a knapsack came running past the tennis courts through the parking lot. He stopped directly in front of my vehicle and looked from side to side before throwing his bag over the fence into someone's yard. He then jumped on the fence and began climbing. A barking beagle immediately darts past the bag, and rushes the fence making a huge ruckus which startles the guy on the fence. The guy crashes to the ground with fence and all! At this point Sam and I are laughing hysterically watching this guy trying to get out from under this broken fence and regain his composure. By now he has seen us, we've all made direct eye contact, and I'm sure he could even hear us laughing. He runs to another section of fence, and this time, he makes it over, but his bag is still in the beagle's yard, and the beagle is systematically and diligently marking and re-marking everything in the yard including the bag."
Well, by this time I am in stitches at the vision of this story. Abi interrupts my laughter, "I have to go. I think one of the police officers is calling me."
I make a mental note to confirm that Abi is using an earpiece or speaker function to talk on the phone while driving because we have a "no handheld devices while driving" law here in Delaware which I wholly support. I knew she was on her way home so I decided to wait to hear the rest of the story. Sure enough about 15 minutes later, Abi is safely home, and I meet her her in the foyer. She follows me to the kitchen.
"So why did the police call you?"
"Oh, he wanted to thank me for sticking around to provide the details of what I witnessed. He also asked for your contact information, and once again took my detailed physical description of the guy, before telling me that they had apprehended the suspect and had him in custody."
"Did you call the police when you saw the man?"
"No, a minute or so after the man got over the fence a barrage of patrol cars stormed the lot. There were no less than a dozen city, county, and state cop cars-- even canine units. They barreled right passed us, got out of their vehicles; dogs and all, and assembled approaching the fence and looking around."
"Did they approach you?"
"No, I thought the guy was going to come back for his bag, but I guess he saw the cops and decided to try to save himself. I drove down to where the cops were assembled, got out of the car, and told them that the guy had left his bag behind. They followed us back down and retrieved it in spite of the barking beagle."
"What was in it?"
"I don't know. They unzipped the bag and pulled out a gray plastic grocery bag. They untied that and pulled out a cellophane package that was probably drugs, but I didn't see them. I was only sticking around at that point because when the beagle continued to bark as the officers tried to get the bag, one of the officers pulled out a taser, and I wanted to make sure that no one hurt that beagle."
Again, I was laughing, and not surprised at what Abigail would deem to be of most importance in this situation. We talked a bit more about her day and the description she was able to provide of the suspect including the event that she witnessed. Then she was off to get ready to visit with her friends and spend the night with Sam.
This morning we have the full story. The suspect was charged with reckless endangering in the first degree, assault in the second degree, felony resisting, possession of a deadly weapon during the commission of a felony, possession of marijuana (tier 1 quantity) and related traffic offenses.
If I had known about that whole "possession of a deadly weapon during the commission of a felony" part yesterday, I doubt I would've been laughing as hard when Abi gave her account of the scene. I'm proud of my daughter. This is the third time she has gone with her intuition that something isn't right and proactively provided information to authorities. She's a good citizen and much less fearful than her mother.
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