Only in the Hub City can you pull into a tire shop to fix a flat and leave with no car, no wallet, and a fresh case of PTSD. Our victim was at Crest Tires on Avenue Q—because where else would you be for a crime story?—when a stranger decided that pointing a gun was a much faster way to get a vehicle than, say, paying for one.
The victim told police he “feared for his life,” which is usually the standard emotion one feels when navigating Avenue Q after dark anyway. In a moment of peak Lubbock confusion, the suspect allegedly shouted a name during the heist, leaving the victim to wonder if he was being robbed by a guy named “Steve” or if a bystander was just yelling at their dog. Despite the gunman’s very polite advice not to follow him, the victim decided to test his cardio by chasing the car on foot. Spoiler alert: the car won, even with the flat tire.
The Lubbock Police Department eventually “located” the vehicle at the Executive Inn, which is approximately two blocks away. Truly, we are dealing with a criminal mastermind who clearly didn’t want to waste gas money on a getaway. The thief managed to ditch the car in the parking lot and vanish into the Lubbock wind, but not before stripping it of the keys, wallet, and phone—the “Avenue Q Starter Pack.”
In a shocking twist that surprised absolutely no one, LPD tried to contact someone at the Executive Inn to see if they noticed a stolen car being abandoned in their lot, but the front desk was apparently as vacant as the suspect’s moral compass. It seems the hotel staff is just as hard to find as a pothole-free street in this town. No arrests have been made, but at least the victim knows his car is safe in the hands of a hotel that doesn’t answer its own phone.
If you can’t get a room at the Executive Inn, I guess you can always just sleep in an unlocked, stolen car in the parking lot—it’s not like anyone is checking the front desk.
