At 11:30 last night I got an email from my mother with the subject of "Robbery" and the only line in it saying "are you up?". I called and Mom said that someone tried to rob my father in their front yard but that he overpowered the kid and took his gun from him. Apparently the only injury he sustained was a dislocated shoulder. It's just another example of how my father continually amazes me. He had gone out to make sure the cars were locked, armed only with his trusty flashlight (it's really more of a spotlight). When he was out at the street he noticed three teenagers walking down the middle of the road. Once he had made it back to the middle of the front yard, he heard the "whump whump whump" of someone trying to stop after a sprint. He turned and there was a kid, maybe 15, hopping around and waving his extended arm in his face.

My father's first reaction was confusion at what his problem was. Then he saw there was a handgun at the end of that extended arm and confusion turned to rage. My father made a noise like a grizzly bear, shined his trusty spotlight right in the kid's face and lunged for him. In the scuffle the light hit the ground just before Daddy and the kid hit the ground. He managed to get both of his hands on the gun so the kid let go. At that point, he had the kid pinned behind him on the ground and had turned the gun over his own right shoulder, trying to fire it at the kid with his thumb. That's when he realized the chamber was empty and wouldn't fire. That's also when the kid realized he was in way over his head and took off in a sprint.

My mother had heard the commotion and came out just as they had hit the ground but all she could do was scream angrily from the front porch. After the kid took off, my parents just stood in the middle of the street and called 911. Then Mom came inside to email me.

When I first heard all of this, I was furious. I wanted to take a baseball bat to the punk who tried to ruin it for everyone in MY neighborhood. That worthless criminal was in the front yard of my childhood home. I had been out walking my dog not an hour before this thug had accosted my father. What if it had been my mother out there? Who does this kid think he is?

After talking to my father more, I was actually more angry at their next door neighbor. He was in his conversion van in the driveway next to this scuffle and DIDN'T DO A GODDAMN THING. He can't call 911? He can't peek out the window to see if maybe my father is making a noise from the Edge because he's wrestling with some kid one fourth his age 30 FEET AWAY. Fuck him.

So to recap, I'll be taking a 9 iron with me on my evening walks, my parents are getting a new light in the front yard, their neighbor is a coward and my father is a one man Neighborhod Watch Machine. As Rich noted, the kid tried to rob an old man and that old man kicked his ass and took his gun from him in front of his friends. Short of peeing on him I'm not sure my father could have shamed the little shithead any more.