A man in a kayak helped police nab an alleged mail thief during a chase in Sammamish, Wash.
According to television station Fox Q13, police received multiple calls on the morning of Christmas Eve that a man in his 30s and a woman in her 20s were rifling through mailboxes near the town of Sammamish.
Good Samaritans located the suspect’s car — allegedly filled with mail — while police were en route to the scene. Witnesses used their vehicles to box the car in but the suspects fled on foot.
Police set up a perimeter and arrested the female suspect. The male suspect grabbed a kayak from a yard and paddled into a neighborhood pond. He’d forgotten to grab a paddle.
“The male suspect didn’t make it very far on the water as he was only using his hands to paddle,” the King County Sheriff’s Office said.
The paddle-less thief was then chased down by another man in a kayak, who convinced the criminal to return to shore and face the consequences.
The man was arrested and held for suspicion of vehicle theft and mail theft, according to police.
Sammamish police and the U.S. Postal Service are investigating the incident.
