charlie sherrill
Member
Back around 2003 I was an investigator with the local Sheriff's Department. I started getting reports of stolen credit cards. Soon a pattern developed and I determined that someone inside one of the local post offices had to be stealing the cards. I contacted a postal inspector, told him what I had, and he set up cameras in the mail sorting room. I soon got my credit card bill and noticed that someone had purchased two camcorders with my card! I went to Wally World to look at video and their system was down that day and had no pictures. I checked stores where some of the other cards had been used and they had good video and I recognized the perp. His nickname was Rusty. I had dealt with Rusty before and he had recently been in our jail and was currently out on bond for credit card fraud. About the same time the postal inspector called me and told me had caught a girl stealing the cards. She was giving them to Rusty. The postal inspector interviewed the girl and she told him a different name than the guy who was actually using the cards. He didn't charge her at the time on condition she flip the perp. She didn't do it. I filed charges on Rusty and got warrants. A few weeks later a guy I had dealt before with shows up at the Sheriff's Office wanting me to help him with a minor felony his girlfriend hand been charged with. I knew that at one time she had dated Rusty. I talked with her and told her if she could help me get my hands on him I would try to help her. Two days later she called me and said he was headed to Hattiesburg and that he was driving a white stolen Ford Explorer and that he had some stolen guns. She told me where he was coming from so I headed out there and waited for him. I wasn't there long when he drove past. I was in an unmarked car but he figured out what I was and took off. I chased him for a couple of miles and he drove into a parking lot at an industrial complex not realizing there was one way in and one way out. I saw him turn around in the parking lot and he headed straight for me speeding up. I blocked the exit with my car and got my shotgun out. He had a girl with him and I could see her screaming as he sped toward me. If it had just been him in the Explorer I probably would have shot him through the windshield but I didn't want to hurt her. It would have been a good shoot because he was committing an assault with a deadly weapon on an officer. At the last second he stopped. As I got him out of the Explorer with some persuasion from the riot gun as backup units started arriving. We cuffed him and her and took them to jail. She was the girl who had been fired for stealing the credit cards. Rusty was charged with multiple felonies and the feds took the case and sentenced him to three years in federal prison. She got a couple of years probation. I interviewed Rusty after the arrest and he told me if she had not been there he would have killed me. I'm not sure how he would have done this being that I was a microsecond from pulling the trigger on the shotgun, but that is what he said. I later found out that the girl had thrown out several stolen guns while I was chasing him.
A few years after this incident a fellow officer came up to me with some video copy of a guy using a stolen credit card at a gas station and asked me if I knew him. It was Rusty. Thirty minutes later we had him cuffed and back in Jail. This time he went through the state system and got ten years. I didn't know he had been released from prison. People like him are one of the reasons I stay armed, even on my tractor and lawnmower. Last Sunday at around 2:00 p.m. Rusty committed his last crime. He tried the same old trick at one of the local shopping centers and the merchant called the local police. As the officer arrived Rusty ran from the store. The officer gave chase and when Rusty pulled out a gun the officer was a little faster. Rusty died from gunshot wounds on the way to the hospital. I don't know the officer. I wouldn't mention his name if I did. However I do know the officer's Dad and frequently worked with him back in my days with the local PD.
A few years after this incident a fellow officer came up to me with some video copy of a guy using a stolen credit card at a gas station and asked me if I knew him. It was Rusty. Thirty minutes later we had him cuffed and back in Jail. This time he went through the state system and got ten years. I didn't know he had been released from prison. People like him are one of the reasons I stay armed, even on my tractor and lawnmower. Last Sunday at around 2:00 p.m. Rusty committed his last crime. He tried the same old trick at one of the local shopping centers and the merchant called the local police. As the officer arrived Rusty ran from the store. The officer gave chase and when Rusty pulled out a gun the officer was a little faster. Rusty died from gunshot wounds on the way to the hospital. I don't know the officer. I wouldn't mention his name if I did. However I do know the officer's Dad and frequently worked with him back in my days with the local PD.
