COTTAGE GROVE, Minn. (WCCO) – A jogger’s quick thinking helped police catch two guys accused of shooting her with a pellet gun.
Michelle Duval, of Cottage Grove, felt a pellet hit her hip while on a jog last Saturday.
“I take pictures of everything,” Duval said. “I’m a mom, I’m a teacher, I’m always whipping out my phone.”
Never did she think her phone would capture criminal activity.
The mother was out for a morning run — on her birthday – when she heard a car pull up close.
“It pulled up alongside me, and I heard a shot,” she said. “And a millisecond later I felt an enormous sting, like I got stabbed. And I screamed.”
She then noticed the car was stopped at a nearby red light.
“I whipped out my iPhone, and I ran in the middle of the street, and I stopped traffic,” she said. “I took a picture of their car. If you look, when you zoom, he’s looking right at me and laughing.”
Duval says she then ran two miles back home to call police.
“And they said, ‘Do you have a license number?’” she explained. “And I said, ‘I sure do.’”
Police used the picture to track down the owner of the vehicle, and eventually a group of young adults.
The police report says the 17-year-old charged with shooting the gun told officers “he did not shoot the woman on purpose.”
With the bruise to prove it, the teacher and mother of three says she’ll take the pain endured, as long as there was a lesson learned.
The 21-year-old driver was ticketed for having no insurance and disorderly conduct. The 17-year-old was ticketed for fifth-degree assault.
