These neighbors acted like heroes

On March 3 our home was burglarized. Our entire home was taped off in the familiar yellow POLICE tape, ammo was scattered across the driveway and a policeman was awaiting our arrival.

Here's the inspiring part of the story.

Our neighbor, Rob, was driving by our house and noticed something wrong. The garage door was going down and the car inside was not ours. Rob stopped at the end of our driveway, talked to our other neighbor, Sheila, to see if we were home.

Sheila rang our doorbell and knocked, while standing there she noticed that the dog gate was down and the basement door was open. Rob then tried calling our house to see if we were there. A car started in the garage and the garage door started to go up. When it got about halfway up, a car shot out of the garage, a car door swung open and an ammo box dropped out. The offenders then drove across our lawn and down the street.

Rob called 911 and followed them. The offenders crashed about 1.5 miles from our home in the car they had stolen earlier that day from Schaumburg. Rob saw them running away from the car, remained on the phone and stayed at the crash site. While waiting, an elderly man drove up to Rob and asked if he was looking for some guys and that they had just tried to carjack him with a gun. The man said "no" and the offenders ran away.

Rob conveyed everything to 911. The school our children attend was placed on lockdown and numerous area police departments as well as a police helicopter joined in the search.

The police did an excellent job and by the end of the evening one juvenile and two adults were in custody!

The offenders trashed our home, stole four guns (three have been recovered), some of our jewelry, money and a few other miscellaneous items. If Rob and Sheila did not interrupt them, and if Rob did not follow them, I am confident that our home would've been cleaned out and the offenders never caught.

We are truly thankful that nobody was hurt and are very grateful to have awesome neighbors.

So the next time you see Rob or Sheila ... buy them a drink, pat them on the back, bake them some cookies, take them fishing (shopping) and tell them that they are HEROES!

So few people in today's society care. Rob and Sheila cared and we feel truly blessed to have them as friends and neighbors. Our society is truly a better place because of them and we need to celebrate the fact that they did the right thing.

Thanks again Rob & Sheila!

The Errington Family

Bartlett