HEAVENLY SHADES OF NIGHT ARE FALLING, IT'S TWILIGHT TIME

A few minutes before sunset last night, I leashed up our newly adopted dog, Marigold, and headed out to meet our friends Cindy and Rudi for a walk.  As we reached the street, we saw three kids running south, with an adult in hot pursuit. 

It was a pleasant evening, so there were a lot of other dogs and dog walkers out and about, and my initial focus was to keep Marigold out of the way to avoid a barking frenzy. 

Then a neighbor drove by and yelled “call the police.”  By then a crowd of neighbors began to gather on the corner, and since I was the only one who had a cell phone with me, I placed the 911 call.  They put me on hold for four minutes, and then someone picked up.  I handed the phone off to Bill, the guy who was chasing the kids.  911 took his information and said the police were on their way.

The story we pieced together was that the kids had shoplifted stuff from a Ross store a nearby shopping plaza.  Bill caught the slowest kid, who said he was friends with the other two but claimed not to have been involved in the theft.  Marigold and I, plus several other neighbors, stood around on the corner for 30 minutes, waiting for the police to arrive.  Finally, Cindy and I decided to proceed with our scheduled dog walk.  Twenty minutes later, when we’d circled back to our starting point, the crowd was beginning to disperse.

Long story short, the cops never showed up.  Two hours later, I got a call from a police officer and told her what I knew, which wasn’t much.  She thanked me and we said goodbye.

I guess the moral of the story is that if you're a petty criminal in Tucson, your odds of getting away with your crime are pretty good.  Even if you can't outrun your neighbor, you can probably outrun the law.