LAPTOP
SHOWDOWN

Everyone has their limits; a line others best not cross in a “you wouldn’t like me when I’m angry” sort of way. For some, it could be the threat of physical harm to a loved one; for others, it’s an almost unnoticeable alteration of their column’s copy by a rot-brained editor. For Alex Botsios, it’s the attempt to steal his laptop. Botsios had no problems handing over his wallet to the bat-wielding grotesque who clambered in through his apartment window one night. He even surrendered his guitars. But when the perp asked for the laptop, the gauntlet was thrown.

Botsios, a first-year law student at the university of Arizona, says he “was like, ‘Dude, no. Please, no!’” He explained that the laptop housed four months’ worth of case files to the creepy stranger, later ID-ed as Gabriel Saucedo, who’d woken him in the night with stealing on the agenda.

Rather than offer empathy, Saucedo, according to Botsios, “was just, like, ‘I’m going to smash your head in.’” The two wrestled, Botsios disarmed Saucedo, then pummelled him into submission.

Saucedo was taken to hospital for stitching up, then charged with armed robbery and kidnapping. Botsios suffered a bruised knuckle.

by SCOTT SAXON