When Jeffrey Stephens and his wife Patricia were recently awakened by their barking dog, Patricia went to investigate (mmmm, shouldn't it have been Jeffrey who did that?). She found a 20-year-old man going through the back seat of a neighbor's van.

Jeffrey Stephens confronted the younger man - ah, here he is, the cavalry - who claimed the van was his friend's. Our hero, Jeffrey, disbelieving of the story, sat on the burglar while Patricia went off to call the police. Jeffrey weighs in at 200lbs so the burglar couldn't move very far.

The case goes to trial this week. Jeffrey sustained minor injuries from his tussle with his young adversary and is the hero of the story. Hell, all he did was sit on the guy - anybody can do that. It took real heroism to investigate the cause of the dog's barking.

TriCities