I want to start this letter by saying thank you to the local police force. I have recently succumbed to being a victim of a crime that involved theft of my property. The Hays police was kind enough to find my property and return it to me under some strange circumstances.
The way this unfolds is a bit bizarre. On the night of Nov. 8, I was visited by an officer of the Hays police force. I happened to be in my backyard at the time the officer knocked on my front door and was not sure if it was my house that the knock actually was for. As it was, my wife had the front door open so I could see from the backyard through the front door and decided I should go check if it was indeed our house. I noticed a police vehicle parked in front of my house, so I decided to go out just in case they were the source of the knocking.
As most people are when they see an officer at their door, I was a bit worried as to what the problem could be. As I walked out the door, the officer got out of their vehicle so I knew that I was most definitely the reason they were there and the knocking was for me.
As they approached me, they asked if I was missing a trailer from my property. I said “not that I know of, but let’s check!” It turns out that some inebriated fellows thought it funny to take my small pickup-style trailer from the side of my house and proceed to walk it down the street.
According to the officer, the fellows mentioned grew tired of walking the trailer down the street and decided to leave it about a block and a half from my house. A concerned citizen heard them drop it and called the police. That was two weeks ago. Now fast-forward two weeks to when the officer visited my house. This is the first time I noticed my trailer as missing. Now the officers could have just gotten rid of my trailer as I obviously had not reported it stolen yet. They could have waited for a report to come in and then figured out the owner. The great thing is that they decided to go a step further and investigate where the trailer came from.
The officer who was at my house explaining to me that he knew where my trailer was went the extra mile to find me instead of waiting for me to call them. They went on Google maps and looked at the houses along the street that the trailer was found. They were able to find my trailer in a picture that was taken of my driveway a few years ago. This drew the officer to my house to ask if the trailer was indeed mine. Now keep in mind the image was old and this could have been a dead end, but luckily I still lived in the house that the image was taken.
I have to say there are so many ways this could have gone worse for me. I did not even notice the trailer gone in the first place. It is not something I use on a regular basis. The officers could have just let it be a piece of stolen property. The whole thing could have been a disaster for me. Instead, the good work of the Hays police officer got me my property back and through concerned citizens was able to catch the fellows who thought in their drunken state to take someone else’s property.
This is my personal thank you to the officer Donovan Richmeier and anyone else who may have helped in this. This was definitely a case of a public servant “serving” the public. Again, thank you, and I hope many see this as proof that our police force is there to help us even though there is so much bad news out there today!”
Brandon Mai, Hays