Great Moments in Crime-Fighting

Some say that the road to Hell is paved with good intentions, and one man did his best to prove that theory on Sunday, according to a report by the Macomb Daily of Mount Clemens, Michigan. When Michael Lonsway, 43 years old, saw an armed robbery in progress at a Shell station near Warren, Mich., he drove his Pontiac Grand Prix to the entrance of the store, hoping to keep the felon from fleeing. Instead, the robber began to climb over the hood of the Grand Prix. Mr. Lonsway floored the accelerator, knocking one shoe and a fake gun loose from the robber, but also ramming through the store's plate-glass window and into displays of windshield-washer fluid and soda bottles.

Undaunted, Mr. Lonsway chased the robber and thought he saw him fleeing in a gold Cadillac. At that juncture, he got on his cell phone and asked police for some backup. They found the gold Cadillac, but the driver turned out not to be the robber, who is still on the loose. Warren Police Detective Sgt. Darcy Leutzinger told the Macomb Register that Mr. Lonsway may have bitten off more than he could chew in this case. "The best thing to do if [a citizen sees] something in progress is to call us." But Mr. Lonsway said he'd do it all again. If citizens didn't do their part to stop crime, he said, "We'd have anarchy in our system.

From the WSJ Afternoon Report