The car thieves who took a tow truck from Hartmann Towing early Saturday picked
on the wrong guy.
Michael Filius, the night manager at the University
City business, was busy cleaning a vehicle inside the garage about 2:45 a.m.
Saturday. A tow truck parked outside had been left idling, as is the
custom.
Soon, he could no longer hear the noisy diesel truck's idle, so
he looked out the window and saw it was missing.
Angry and a little
embarrassed, Filius sprang into action. A former California corrections officer,
Filius wanted to get the truck back before the thieves stripped it. So he
activated the global-positioning system on board the truck to track its
movement. The tow company handles calls for AAA, so Filius also got AAA to
monitor the GPS and alert him on his cell phone of every location
change.
Filius jumped in his Mercury Sable and started tracking the
stolen truck. As he headed into north St. Louis, Filius noted that the truck has
been motionless for about 3 1/2 minutes. He figured it was abandoned and went to
the scene -- at Hamilton and Natural Bridge avenues.
He saw two men with
the truck and was surprised they weren't kids. They looked to be in their 30s,
he said.
What happened next is in dispute.
Filius said he forced
the tow truck over using a "pit maneuver," something he learned attending a
sheriff's academy in 1995 in California when he was learning to be a corrections
officer. One of the truck's tires blew, and Filius pinned the truck in so it
couldn't drive away. When the driver jumped out, Filius said, Filius
accidentally drove over the man's shoe, which pinned him there until police
arrived.
St. Louis police confirm Filius' account, to a point. They say
Filius drove into an alley where a fleeing suspect was trying to climb a fence
to escape. When the suspect slipped off the fence, Filius' car accidentally
struck him. The suspect suffered bruising from being hit. A police district
commander this morning said he wasn't aware the suspect's foot was pinned by
Filius' tire.
Either way, police say, the 30-year-old suspect was
arrested on suspicion of tampering and theft. St. Louis police say they're
letting University City handle it from here; a captain with University City
police said the case is under investigation but had no details on charges. A
second car thief got away, apparently with Filius' wallet.
Filius said
that, while he was waiting for city police to show up to arrest the car thief,
the thief tried to negotiate -- saying he'd return the man's wallet if he'd let
him go.
"He talked to me, then he threatened me," said Filius, 36. "He
called me by my first name, because he'd seen my license."
Police in
University City and St. Louis agree that Filius is lucky he wasn't hurt. They
warn victims of car theft to call police, rather than try to find the car on
their own.
Filius, meanwhile, said he was simply fed up with being a
victim.
"I have to see these little hoodlums every day," he said.
"There's a point I'm not going to take it anymore."
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