Neither borrow nor lend

One of the benefits of borrowing money from a bank is the ability to scan the fine print for the words “Lender reserves the right to shoot the borrower.” But Christopher Prentice did not borrow the $200 he needed for car insurance from a bank. Instead, he turned to Lewis Davis, a “friend of a friend” who expected to be paid back $250 by the following Friday. When Prentice text-messaged Davis a request for an extra week’s time, it was game on.

Visiting a girlfriend in Pasco, Florida, Prentice was sitting in his SUV when Davis pulled alongside him brandishing a pistol. What followed was a high-speed chase the likes of which Pasco had never seen. “I was jumping curbs, going the wrong way, blowing red lights,” Prentice says. “I broke every damn law there is.” What he didn’t do was lose Davis, who fired several shots during the chase, one of which took off Prentice’s driver’s side mirror.

“Another foot,” Prentice told the press, “he would’ve blowed my head off.” The chase ended in the same lot in which it began, but with police present. Both men had criminal records. Davis has added charges to his.

by Scott Saxon