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I moved to Minnesota from the great state of Texas in 2003. I had been living in my cookie cutter community Minneapolis suburb for about a month when I got up early one morning to take my mother-in-law and grandmother-in-law to the airport for their flight back home. It was around 3:30 AM when we pulled out of our driveway. Our subdivision was brand new, so there were still empty lots and several lots with houses in various stages of construction. As I approached the exit of our subdivision, we passed a vehicle headed in the opposite direction. As soon as we passed the vehicle, it turns around to get behind me and begins flashing his lights at me. As luck would have it, I left my gun in my other vehicle in my garage and was not yet in the habit of carrying my cell phone. The local police station was a long distance away and I wasn't exactly sure where it was anyway, so I sped through the neighborhood headed back to my house to get my gun and call 911. The whole way back, I had the other car behind me flashing lights and keeping up with me as we were speeding through a residential neighborhood.

When we arrived home, I screeched to a stop in my driveway while the garage door was opening. I instructed the mother-in-law and grandmother-in-law to remain in the car and my wife to run into the house and call 911. I ran to my truck and pulled my pistol out. The other car had stopped in the street parked in front of my house. As I was getting my gun, I heard the door open on the other vehicle and when I had turned around I saw the driver side door opening. I held my pistol in the ready position and started yelling at the driver to "Stop, Don't get out of the vehicle, Let me see your hands, etc". I don't remember all the exact commands I gave, but I'm sure I used colorful language as I was just out of the army and my adrenaline was flowing. All of the sudden I see the door swing open and a VERY TALL and VERY LARGE man puts his hands up and yells my last name as he is identifying himself as one of my neighobrs. By this time, my gun had moved from the ready position and I was now pointing it directly at him.

As it turns out- it was a neighbor I had just met within the past few days. He had been up late watching tv, and had noticed a car driving slowly through the neighborhood which he assumed was casing the hood for a home/construction site to rob. Instead of calling the police, he took it upon himself to drive through the neighborhood and patrol it himself. When he saw my car, he thought it looked like the other car he had seen casing the hood- so he took it upon himself to chase me down.

Luckily, my wife had not dialed 911 yet before we realized this was our neighbor, and luckily I did not end up shooting him. During the mother-in-law and grandmother-in-law visit, my wife and I had been telling them about how safe the neighborhood was, and then this happened.