Chevy Silverado owner booby-trapped his truck after criminals broke in 8 times in 3 months
It sounds like something you’d see in a goofy television series. Thieves push a Chevy Silverado owner a little too far. So what does he do? He rigs a shotgun shell booby trap to send criminals scurrying.
Thieves pushed a New Orleans Chevy Silverado owner to the extent of booby-trapping his beloved pickup truck
After criminals broke into his truck for the eighth time in three months, a Chevy Silverado owner had enough. The New Orleans man rigged a booby trap with a metal case, a projectile-free 12-gauge shotgun shell, and a trip wire with a ring. He positioned the trip wire so an intruder would likely set it off in the truck’s cabin.
Get this: his booby trap worked. On a Sunday morning in The Big Easy, a white Chevrolet Cruze pulled past the lifted pickup truck. A hooded criminal emerged from the rear passenger door, hammer in hand. He broke the driver’s side window, leaving glass fragments all over the street.
The thief then vaults up into the broken window, dangling his legs out as he does. After a few moments of rummaging around in the parked Chevy Silverado, camera footage captured a bright flash. The criminal had tripped the shotgun shell booby trap. While the device didn’t seem to cause any visible harm to the would-be thief, it scared them off.
The 12-gauge shotgun shell acted as a sort of flashbang device. It flashed and emitted an ear-shattering report like that of a shotgun in close quarters. Moreover, according to the Michigan lawyer Steve Lehto, the truck’s owner didn’t face charges for the incident.
Believe it or not, these sorts of anti-theft countermeasures are more common than you might think. In the UK, the so-called “Bike Mine” involved a similar projectile-free munition in a metal case with a trip wire. In theory, a thief would attempt to steal a bicycle with the device onboard. Like the Chevy Silverado’s device, the Bike Mine would create a flash and explosive sound.
More recently, a 61-year-old man used shotgun shells to booby-trap his Santa Monica residence. The elderly California man rigged the shells to go off without a slug, buckshot, or birdshot, per ABC 7. Instead, he opted for the noisy, scary report of a blank. Unlike the Silverado owner, police arrested and charged the 61-year-old.
