Masked Bandits

Posted by: Blue

We were looking for an intoxicated male who had Asperger Syndrome.

He had been evicted by his landlord a few months ago and was now making false reports of all manner of things, attempting to get the landlord into trouble.  He would call from an unregistered telephone or payphone and today he was reporting that the landlord was beating his girlfriend, and there was "blood everywhere!"

We were searching the area, believing our suspect to be on the lam in the area.  A brief conversation with a couple of passers-by revealed that they had seen a male matching the description stumbling drunkenly through a yard just a few minutes ago, tripping himself in the hedges as he went.

We followed their direction and quickly found a pair of sunglasses and three empty beer bottles along the path that they had seen him on.

We headed through the yard and into the dark alley; kept our flashlights off to avoid illuminating ourselves and to maintain our night vision.

My partner was about 40 yards ahead of me.  Suddenly I saw his head snap to the right and the bright white LED beam of his Streamlight lit up the bushes of the backyard.  He hollered.  I came running.

There were three of them, all in a row, slinking along the fence.  The biggest one was in the lead.  They were all masked and wearing heavy coats, despite the hot weather.

We stared at them and they stared right back.

There we stood in silence for a few seconds until my partner turned out the light, and the family of raccoons disappeared into the night like ninjas.

Never did find our suspect.