Aurelius Township, Mich.-There won’t be any medal for the 70-year-old farmer who caught a thief last month draining anhydrous ammonia from a tank and held him at gunpoint until Ingham County sheriff’s officers arrived and took the suspect into custody. But according to the officer, the capture during a blizzard was reward enough, because this particular farm had been victimized for anhydrous on numerous occasions before. Sheriff’s spokesman Steve Sopocy told Green Markets the farmer had been alerted by a motion detector set up to thwart such thievery. “It happened at about 8:20 p.m. when the farmer, whose name can’t be released, went out to check out what was going on. Upon rounding the edge of the building where his anhydrous tank was located, he spotted this suspect, who had a thermos type container and was holding it near the tank’s valve,” Sopocy explained. “The individual obviously was surprised when he was accosted by the farmer and admitted to the farmer that he had been there at least three times attempting the theft of anhydrous. He was held there at gunpoint until police arrived and arrested the subject and transported him to jail.” He said Ingham County has been having a lot of problems with anhydrous being stolen for meth, and several farmers have installed motion detectors along with cameras.
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