Salina Man Traps Suspected Thieves In Storage Facility

A business owner turned the tables on suspected thieves, and his quick thinking put them behind bars before police could.

It's normal for people to come and go from storage units all the time, but Jake Johnson did a double take when he saw some people at his family's business, Salina Boat and RV storage.

"They were over here for a long time, and just kind of suspicious," he said.

Turns out the suspected thieves were stealing a four-wheeler.

According to Sergeant Jay Milliron with Salina Police, the suspected thieves said, "That they had bought the four-wheeler off of Craigslist."

That didn't make sense to Johnson, since it's his four-wheeler.

“Well I never put it on Craigslist so how did you buy it off me," Johnson asked.

The ATV doesn't even run and isn't very valuable, but it still made Johnson mad, so he shut the storage facility's heavy gate, locking them inside.

"Kind of smiled because it was funny they were trapped and there was nothing they could do after that," Johnson said.

One suspect climbed the barbed wire fence and took off running, but was later caught by GRDA police and Mayes County deputies, who used heat detecting binoculars.

"He took off and ran up into the woods and they got out their fleer unit and was able to locate him by his heat signal," Milliron said.

As for the other two, all they could do was wait until police arrived.

"They were pretty depressed because they were locked in and had nothing to do," Johnson said.

Milliron said, "It's not advisable to do something like that, but it's kind of funny it turned out the way it did."

Johnson didn't think about his own safety when he locked them up, he just didn't think it was right having his stuff stolen.

Once arrested, the three men were put behind a different set of bars at the Mayes County jail.

All three suspects face burglary charges.