This is kind of a long story so I will try to make it brief.
I was out one day last year detecting a local park, which was normal. I had my Compadre and was hoping for some gold before going home, which was particularly normal. It was late afternoon and the sun was fading into the west with diaphanous clouds tinged with pink and red peaking over the mountains. (nice beginning isn't it) Any way I had been at it for a few hours and was just poking along with no particular strategy and mostly pulling tabs and can slaw. This was also particularly normal, I dig a lot of slaw.
Off to one corner of the park was the tot lot that I had hit earlier with no success. A few kids 8 to 10 from the look of them had been there for about the last hour. When they first showed up they had watched me, but soon lost interest. I was working around a basketball court and noticed that the kids had broken up. Most of them heading off down the street in away from me. One of the kids was heading my way. He came up about 10 feet away and watched me dig a few targets. I could tell he wanted to talk to me but was too shy. He finally got up the nerve and asked me what I was doing. I like kids and generally try to share what I am doing when they show interest. I took off my headphones and unplugged them so he could hear and explained how it all worked. I got a good signal and dug up a dime. I gave it to him and said he could keep it. He continued to watch while I dug a few more tabs, foil and a penny or 2. Asking questions the whole time. He finally asked the question I had been expecting which was "can I try".
I usually don't like to do this but, I was board and not finding much so I though why not. I gave him the detector, which was way too long for him and he tucked it under his arm and went to swinging. I showed him how to keep the coil level and cover the ground with overlapping swings. He was a polite kid and I was starting to like him. He got a good signal and I told him to stop and dig. I gave him my pro-pointer and he worked at digging out the target. He made quite a mess of it, but it was a bare dirt area so I wasn't worried. Much to my surprise a large silver looking ring pops out of the ground. This seems to always happen when I lone out my detector. He whooped with excitement and grabbed it. After he had a good look at it I asked to look at it. I was planning on letting him keep it no matter what, finders keepers and all that. This is where things got weird. He looked at me with a hurt expression on his face and reluctantly handed over the ring. I examined it closely, looking at the markings, and generally making admiring statements about it. It turned out to be quite a nice women's silver ring with some clear stones in it. He watched me suspiciously the entire time, obviously thinking I was planning on keeping it. Finally he asked to look at it again.
I held it out and as soon as the ring hit his hand he took off running, like a he had a raw steak and a pack of ravenous wolves were chasing him. I would have found this funny except the steak he was holding turned out to be my Compadre. So like a pack of ravenous wolves chasing a 10 year old with a steak I went after him. One of the problems with Tesoros being so light is that my Compadre wasn't slowing him down in the least. I dont think he even realized he still had my detector. Luckily I am not one of you old farts and am quite fast in my own right.
Well the chase was on, me sprinting down the street yelling, pull tabs and canslaw flying out of my pouch leaving a trail like bread crumbs in my wake. The kid pounding down the street with my detector in one hand and his ring in the other. I wasnt thinking about how this looked, I just wanted my detector back. Just about this time I see a cop car coming down the street towards me. I think he saw us at about the same time and turned his lights on. I kept running while I waved at him to stop. The cop zooms up the street right past the kid and swerves into a driveway in front of me cutting off my pursuit. Its almost dark at this point and the cop jumps out of the car and staying behind his open door draws down on me. I skidded to a stop and cop starts yelling at me drop the weapon and put my hands. What you dont see in all this is that I have been running with my digger in my hand. Which for all intents and purposes is a large rather wicked looking knife. All the cop sees is a crazy dude looking like a psycho from a Hollywood thriller, chasing down a little kid.
The moment I realized what was going on I dropped the digger and put up my hands. I followed all his instructions and ended up cuffed face down in the street. Two more cop cars came screaming up sirens blaring and more cops piled out. They stood me up and started asking questions. I tried to explain what had happened but they weren't believing it. One of the cops goes over and picks up my digger. I got lucky at this point because the third cop that showed up has seen detecting before and knows a little about it. I explained my story to him and he thought it was funny. He asked the first cop if he had seen the kid and to his credit the cop had. They uncuffed me but wouldn't give back the digger just yet.
There seemed to be about 20 onlookers standing around now and the cops started asking if any of them knew the little boy I had described. I noticed what looked like one of the other kids from the park in the crowd and the cops asked him about it. The kid led us around the block to a house and said the Compadre snatcher lived there. The cops knocked and long story short I got my detector back and didnt even get shot in the process.
This would have to be my best detecting story ever, but sadly its not true. I did find a gold ring one time but thats a different story.