Opinion - Spree ends for the Barefoot Bandit

For such a young man, he has had quite a run.

Colton Harris-Moore, now 19, eluded police for two years.

After walking away from a juvenile half-way house, he started a crime spree that started near Seattle and ended in the Bahamas. Moore evaded police in at least eight states. He has allegedly stolen a variety of expensive planes and boats during his exploits. The list of his suspected crimes is around 70.

At one point, he left chalk drawings of bare feet on the floor of one of his crime scenes, thus becoming the “Barefoot Bandit.”

His exploits have earned him near folk-hero status and hundreds of thousands of followers on social networking sites.

Recently he stole a plane and flew it from Indiana to the Bahamas, no mean feat in itself. There he crashed landed. Before long he was tracked down and apprehended after he tried to escape in a $250,000 launch.

The Bahamian officials at first declared that he would face a myriad of charges before being extradited to the United States. Instead, he was charged only with illegally entering the country. He is now in Florida and may soon be back in Washington to face justice here.

Apparently, Bahamian law enforcement felt he might be a handful and quickly surrendered jurisdiction over to the states, with the U.S. embassy there actually paying his $300 fine.

One Washington state relative condemns the media, local Washington law enforcement and school officials for his problems. His mother, on the other hand, reportedly said she misses him and is proud of him for being able to fly planes without any training.

Some have compared Moore to Jesse James or the Depression-era criminals like Bonnie and Clyde who became folk legends. He is young and rebellious as the others were, but he is only accused of property crimes unlike them.

His celebrity may tell us something. Despite his relentless criminal behavior, people are able to relate to him. His crime spree was colorful and easy to grasp. The current wave of crimes by the likes of Bernie Madoff, British Petroleum and white collar executives are more rapacious and harder to fathom.

Gordon Forgey

Publisher