Calling the police is a natural reaction when your car has been ransacked and your stuff has been stolen, sure. But if the suspected thief happens to leave behind his cell phone? Don’t call him and try to yell at him for what he’s done — just dial up his mother and get him in a whole lotta trouble, like one Seattle woman did recently.

ABC News says the woman found an unfamiliar black smartphone in her car and, connecting the dots like a savvy problem solver, figured it probably belonged to the other person who’d been in her car, stealing her running shoes and sunglasses.

Since many of us list our parents as Mom, Dad, etc., it was an easy step from there to simply scroll through the phone’s contacts and call the one person we all fear more than the wrath of law enforcement.

It turns out that the suspected pilferer is a 19-year-old, landing him squarely in the parental doghouse.

“I said, ‘This is a very uncomfortable phone call to make. I have your son’s phone and I’m missing some things out of my car and I think they might be two related items,’”  she said. “And she [the mother] was devastated.”

The woman happens to work with teenagers and didn’t want the cops to get tangled up in things if there was another way, so she drove to their home to speak with the teen and his mom.
“We knocked on the door and he answered in just sort of a defeated look. He looked like he had been crying,” she said, adding that he’d hit 10 other cars int he neighborhood after drinking with friends.

As his punishment, he agreed to go house-to-house with his cohort and return the stolen items, as well as apologize.

“I said, ‘This is a very uncomfortable phone call to make. I have your son’s phone and I’m missing some things out of my car and I think they might be two related items,’” Webb told ABC News’ Seattle affiliate KOMO. “And she [the mother] was devastated.”

Vigilante justice at its gentlest, folks.

Seattle Theft Victim Skips Cops, Calls Alleged Thief’s Mother [ABC News]

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