Re: America's Most Wanted Teen-Aged Bandit

[climber]

On Dec 18, 6:39 pm, Removing Ignorant Liberals In 2010
<antisocial...@america.us> wrote:
> http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1946950,00.html?iid=...
> dule
>
> Visitors hoping to catch a glimpse of the bald eagles on Camano Island
> in Washington State's Puget Sound are more likely to see a different
> bird in the sky: a police chopper skimming the cedar forests in search
> of an outlaw. Colton Harris-Moore, a gangly 18-year-old with furtive
> eyes and a dimpled chin, has been on police blotters since he was
> accused of stealing a bike at the age of 8. Since then, he is suspected
> of having committed nearly 100 burglaries in Washington, Idaho and
> Canada. Police allege that he graduated from bikes to cars, then to
> speedboats. Lately, he is suspected of stealing three small aircraft
> all the more impressive given that he has never taken a single flying
> lesson. (See the top 10 crime stories of 2009.)
>
> Harris-Moore, 6 ft. 5 in. (1.96 m), has become a legend in the Pacific
> Northwest T-shirts bearing his face or the words FLY, COLTON, FLY are
> big sellers in Seattle and on the Internet. His Facebook fan club has
> 8,000 members, and a hokey ballad on YouTube sings his praises.
> Harris-Moore's supporters see a deeper meaning to his popularity: During
> hard economic times, they say, why not celebrate a poor boy who robs
> from the island vacation homes of Seattle's dotcom gazillionaires? But
> Harris-Moore apparently steals just as often from Camano's ordinary folk
> as he does from the rich. (See the top 10 Facebook stories of 2009.)
>
> He had a rough past. Harris-Moore's abusive father walked out after
> choking him during an argument at a family barbecue. His mother raised
> him in a mobile home dragged into the woods on the island's South End,
> which, as local writer and stained-glass artist Jack Archibald says, has
> "basically one main road, a two-lane blacktop that loops around like a
> belt on a skinny fella."
>
> Some locals speculate that Harris-Moore burgles not for the money but to
> experience the fantasy of the happy home life he never had as a child.
> According to local sheriffs, he often slips into a house just to soak in
> a hot bath or steal mint-chip ice cream from the fridge a "Goldilocks
> thing," one investigator says. Initially, Harris-Moore seemed to steal
> only what he needed for life in the woods. "He's a survivalist," says
> Archibald. The teenager allegedly used one homeowner's computer and
> credit-card information to order bear mace and a pair of $6,500
> night-vision goggles. (See the top 10 gadgets of 2009.)
>
> His recent alleged crimes have been more brazen. He's been accused of
> stealing speedboats to travel to nearby islands to plunder empty homes.
> In November 2008, police suspect that Harris-Moore hot-wired a Cessna
> that belonged to a local radio DJ he'd ordered a flying manual on the
> Internet and crash-landed it 300 miles (about 480 km) east on an
> Indian reservation. Since then, he may have stolen two other planes,
> both of which were later found crashed. He apparently walked away from
> the wrecks, miraculously unharmed. On Fox News, Harris-Moore's mother
> Pam Kohler outraged her tut-tutting interviewer by saying, "I hope to
> hell he stole those planes. I'd be so proud. But next time, I want him
> to wear a parachute."
>
> So where is he now? When police recently retrieved a stolen
> Mercedes-Benz on Camano, they discovered a camera with a photo that
> Harris-Moore had snapped of himself. The manhunt has become more
> intense. Before slipping away from a police raid on his mother's
> trailer, Harris-Moore left a note: "Cops wanna play huh!? Well its no
> lil game.....It's war! & tell them that." Authorities say he then broke
> into a deputy's car and stole, among other things, an assault rifle. He
> is now considered armed and dangerous. "He's not evil, but he's not
> Robin Hood either," says artist Jack Gunter, an island resident. "Unless
> he's stopped, chances are he'll end up a career criminal or dead."
>
> That, of course, would only add to his legend. To his young fans,
> Harris-Moore is known as "the Barefoot Burglar" because he once kicked
> off his shoes to flee deputies chasing him in the woods. One of his
> admirers a young, tattooed waitress at the Viking Restaurant in nearby
> Stanwood, on the mainland says that one night last month, she saw a
> tall young man sprinting down the street. "He was barefoot, and he was
> laughing. I wanted it so much to be Colton."

An amusing read.

Climber