Farmers leave bare-bottomed thief hog-tied for police

Two central Alberta farmers served up some cold hard justice to an alleged fuel thief on their property, leaving him tied up and pantless in the snow until Mounties arrived. Having fallen victim to a thief at their ranch near Trochu, east of Olds, Alta., a handful of times, Tim Lynch and his son Kris sprang into action on Wednesday morning when they were alerted to a truck on the property with similar tyre tracks they have seen before. Kris confronted the man in an attempt to delay him from fleeing and realized the unwanted visitor may have been sitting in a stolen truck.

"He put it in gear and put it to the floor," Kris said. "I jumped on the running board and held onto the steering wheel and reached in and grabbed the shift stick and held it in park. I am yelling at Dad to get the guy out of the truck." He managed to get in the truck but the man threw it back into drive and took the pair on a ride across the yard as they struggled. The truck again stopped, Kris then wrestled with the man to the backseat, avoiding swings of a pry bar, while his dad ran for a rope. "I got him in a headlock until Dad got the rope around his feet," he said.



The duo then dropped the man, who was wearing pyjama pants but no underwear, onto the snow and "his bare ass was hanging out," Kris said. "We tied it around his ankles and then grabbed another rope and tied his hands up and the police arrived about 40 minutes later," he said. The father-son pair said their vigilante justice was just instinct. "You come across someone threatening your livelihood and family ... it's an instinct," the elder Lynch said.

"We work with cattle - it works with them so we figured it would work with him." Kris said he just wanted to see justice finally served. The man faces charges of possession of property obtained by crime over $5,000, and less than $5,000 and theft under $5,000, said Three Hills RCMP Const. Anna Ogden. Sgt. Patrick Webb advised caution when catching a suspect. "The Criminal Code provides for a certain level of use of force to protect property, but anyone using force ... has to be cognizant of the fact they could be charged," he said.