A family is grateful for their lives but frustrated and saddened after trying to fight off thieves who stole their car.
Paige Burleson, her 17-year-old son Gavin, and her husband had just gotten home from picking up dinner. Her husband parked while the two ran inside with food. That’s when Auburn police say a stolen car with five suspects inside pulled up. The group got out and stole their Alfa Romeo.
But that didn’t happen without a fight.
Gavin jumped into the car with his fists and removed many of the suspects from the car.
“I ran in the car and started trying to get it back by fighting them,” Gavin said.
Paige ran after her son and tried to pull some of the suspects off him. She used her full weight to knock one of them to the ground. Some suspects got out of the car. Four of them, Paige says, were teenagers younger than her own son.
“14 or 15 is the youngest because when I opened that door I was shocked, shocked to see a child there who was younger than my child.” She recalled, “I almost said, what are you doing here? Go home.”
The four teenagers were accompanied by a man, estimated to be Gavin, in his thirties or forties, who, in the eyes of the family, was in charge of the operation. As Gavin waved his fists, the suspects pistol-whipped him several times.
“I didn’t even know I got hit by the gun or anything until I finally got up from the car and looked to my left and a gun was pointed at me.”
At that moment, Gavin gave in, with the reality of his life hanging in the balance. He was motivated by the importance of the car, almost as much as he was taken over by the instinct to fight for what is theirs. Gavin still tried to argue for the humanity of the teens and the man, shouting about how hard his family had worked for the car, which became a sense of stability for them.
“When the three of us finally made it together as a family, that was one of the first things we bought and to lose it like that I honestly thought that was impossible.”
Auburn Police Public Information Officer Kolby Crossley says detectives have been assigned to the case and are trying to use DOT cameras to track where the car went.
“This is really hard, he was in his car, he just pulled into his parking lot and you think you feel safe driving into your house.”
Crossley says people must always weigh whether their lives are worth fighting for what is theirs.
“You want to protect your assets, but at the same time you have to protect yourself,” he said.
It’s a conversation Paige has had with her son before. She had put up cameras around her house because of the crime she saw in the area.
“When you’re in this situation, it’s different: the desperation, the frustration, that’s all he was thinking about. Death wasn’t what he was thinking about when I was doing well,” Paige said. “I am more than proud. I don’t want any child to risk their life for anything, but I couldn’t be more proud of my son. the child I raised has become a wonderful man and person.”
Seven years ago they moved back to Auburn, to the apartment that was her mother’s pride and joy. They had previously lived in Lakeland Hills, which felt like a safe haven for her family. The costs of maintaining two homes after her mother’s death were too high, so she returned to the home that meant so much to them. The house where they eventually had to fight armed thieves.
“Most of his life it was me, her and Gavin,” Paige said, “it was just the three of us, so selling this place would have been like selling her, selling a piece of her, and now I don’t think we can stay anywhere. We simply cannot do more.”
Masks and video footage have made it difficult to identify or describe the suspects, Crossley said. For Paige, she thinks APD is doing the best they can with the workload and staffing they have. As her son’s bruises heal, she thinks that he and the other children in Auburn deserve better than what the city government has given them.
“If you’re not going to protect us, we need someone who will, who will speak for us and protect our city, because it can be done.”
