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TwitThisWe Might Never Have Caught Him
The Dodge was back, heading directly toward them. Through the window, the driver looked ominously muscular. Zach, at five feet, ten inches, weighed just 155 pounds. But he was intent on stopping the hit-and-run driver. As Zach stepped off the curb, the Dodge swerved toward him.Zach stretched to open the driver's door. No luck. He chased the car on foot, out of sheer desperation. The rattling Dodge kept going, blowing past stop signs and a red light. In the Jeep, Luke leaned on the horn while both boys yelled out the windows, "Stop the car!" The end came when they turned down Fern Street, which dead-ended at an open field. The car rammed into a ditch and finally stopped.
For the first time, a thread of fear crept into the boys' minds. "What if he has a gun?" Luke wondered. "We better stay back."
But without a look in their direction, the man jumped out and took off running. Several miles away, police apprehended Mark Mead, a registered sex offender on parole for a 1992 rape conviction. Mead, 35, was later acquitted of attempted rape, but convicted of reckless driving, leaving the scene of an accident, and resisting arrest. He was sentenced to three to five years in prison.
Assistant Police Chief Timothy Vincent praised the four friends for getting involved. "Without their help," he said, "we might never have gotten the guy."
The boys themselves are more modest. "I may be a hero in some people's eyes, but my dad's the real hero," said Matt Rodriguez. His father, a serviceman, was in Iraq.
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