A man who refused to be stolen from confronted a pair of men who were making off with a load of auto parts they'd taken from his property Wednesday morning and held them until law enforcement arrived.
Jerry Whitener, 70, of Nello Road in Mountain View, said he was driving across his property on a golf cart with an employee at about 9:30 a.m. when he saw a Toyota truck driving toward the main road from the back of the property.
The truck was driving fast and it didn't belong there so Whitener pulled his golf cart out in front of it, he said.
"They just about ran over us," he said. "They dodged us at the last minute."
He recognized the driver and shouted for him to stop. When he did, Whitener remembered that he'd come on the property the day before and asked if he could have an old stove. Whitener told him he couldn't have it.
That wasn't the first time Whitener had seen the pair of men in the truck. They were brothers and they'd grown up across N.C. 127 from his property.
Whitener made his living, and still works part-time, as a dump truck driver delivering loads of gravel, dirt and mulch.
"I used to go out there and fix his daddy's driveway," he said.
Whitener saw some old rims and two axles from a big truck when he looked in the back of the Toyota.
"It wasn't worth more than $50 of junk steel they were hauling off, but it was mine," he said.
Whitener left his employee to watch the men while he went inside and called 911 to report the theft. While he was on the phone his wife handed him her .25 automatic pistol.
He slipped it in his pocket and went back to the truck to await the arrival of the Catawba deputies.
When they arrived they arrested the two men.
Jason Scott Leonard, 31, and his brother, Jerry Wayne Leonard, 40, were arrested and charged with misdemeanor larceny.
Both men were released on $300 unsecured bond.
Whitener said he's spent his life working too hard to be stolen from. He said he'd do the same thing if he were confronted with a similar situation.
"I might try to keep the gun a little more handy than I did before," he said.
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