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Man in bathrobe fights thief, recovers stolen items

Posted at 9:26 PM, Nov 28, 2017
and last updated 2017-11-28 23:42:01-05

TOOELE, Utah - Wearing only a bathrobe, a Utah man tackled a thief who was rifling through his possessions in his car.

"When I saw him, he was inside like this," said Mark Miner, demonstrating what the thief looked like: half in and half out the door.

Miner said the man ran, so he tackled him from behind.

"This one is painful," Miner said while pointing to all his cuts and scrapes.

But in the tustle, Miner managed to wrestle away the thief's backpack. It just so happened to belong to a high school student a couple streets away.

"It wasn't here this morning," Ian Staten said while pointing to a bare spot on his car seat. He had left his backpack, his wallet, and his brand-new skis in the car Monday night. Sometime between midnight and 2:00 a.m, his car was broken into, and by 5 a.m, he woke up to a text message from police with a picture of his backpack.

"My friend, who is an officer, sent it to me like, 'does this look familiar?'"

Miner said he was glad he was able to get Staten's backpack back, but when he looks back on what happened, he said he would have handled it differently.

"I wouldn’t do what I did again," Miner confirms. "I would call the police. If I would have called them when I first saw, there’s a good chance I wouldn’t have a road rash now."