First time I was ever arrested was with a couple of friends for trying to steal the mat and springs from a trampoline chained to a tree and leaning against a local motorcycle shop that was selling it. After many beers it seemed like a good idea since we had a frame already. Would have succeeded if my buddies, once they had climbed the tree to get to the top springs, hadn't gotten distracted by cycles they could see over the fence in the yard and decided they should check it out./

Once I saw them get on top of the building and jump down on the other side of the fence I walked across the street and stood next to an old van that looked like it had been stranded there for weeks judging by the length of the grass that had grown up around it, in case any cars drove by I had something to hide behind. I guess they must have tripped an alarm because sure enough a car drove up. A cop car pulled up and parked directly across the street from where I was crouched behind this van. After the initial fear wore off I knew they would eventually be checking the entire area and would be toast if they walked around the vas where I was hiding.

It was then that made my brilliant get away. about ten feet behind where I was there were some train tracks that ran through this open field and were recessed about two feet below ground level due to the terrain. I crawled the ten feet and rolled down the slope to the track level and crawled along the tracks about 100 feet until I was away from the glow of the street lights and then just stood up and walked in the direction opposite of the cops. I would have waked all the way home if my two friends didn't decide to make a getaway of their own.

Apparently they were back up in the tree and watching the cops walking around the building just a few feet below them and knew all the cops had to do was look up and they were busted. So the decided to jump down and take off running, the idea being that by the time the police saw them and reacted the would already have a good lead on them and they could get away. Didn't exactly work out that way as one of them was grabbing just as his feet hit the ground. The other who was pretty fast came flying by me as I'm walking across this field with one cop giving chase who must have known he was outrun already and came back to me pretty quickly asking me what I was doing. I was pretty confident I was Ok at this point since the last thing we agreed to before we started this little caper was that if anyone got caught we didn't know the other two. I told the cop I was walking home from a friends house. He asked me to come back over to where the other police were for a few minutes and I figured why not, I had distanced myself from the caper and surely my friends wouldn't say anything. Wrong!

As were walked up to the police cars the cop I was walking with started to tell who I think was the ranking officer on the scene about how he saw me walking and about the guy that got away. Before he was even finished the other officer said that's alright and proceeded to giver my name and my buddies name who was long gone by then. That was when I saw my other friend already cuffed and in the back of the cruiser where I was to join him. It wasn't after we got to the police station that an officer i had never seen before came in leading my friend who had made it all the way home. They had sent a unit to his house to pick him up since my other friend had given them names, addresses and phone numbers already.. They ended up calling our parents who had to come pick us up since we were just 15 at the time. Turns out my dad and one of the other parents knew the owner of the shop and he didn't press charges. Ended up getting off with only having to write a letter of apology. My friend turned informant apologized to me as well for telling. We stayed friends but I never fully trusted him after that.

TLDR:: Tried to steal a trampoline mat and springs, got caught, got arrested and got off with no charges due to familial acquaintances.