By Brandon Case
Pratt columnist
Special to the Tribune

There was nothing typical about that morning.

Recently, pre-dawn after my wife got off work, she and I decided to fill our gas tanks and several empty fuel containers. As we arrived at the Dillons fuel center, I noticed a car parked at one of the pumps that looked like it had just been hit. The back end was gone, the trunk was open, and there was a tall man picking up objects off the ground and throwing them into the trunk of the vehicle, appearing to be a little agitated.

I opted to park on the opposite side of the fuel center, where we would watch the drama unfold while pumping gasoline.

A Dillon’s fuel center employee (whom my wife and I both know and who shall remain anonymous) confronted the man and soon said that she was going to call the police. The man said that was fine, as someone needed to replace his vehicle (something like that anyway). As the attendant went to make the call, the man drove off … and not hurriedly. He even nodded at me in greeting as he drove by … and then disappeared into the darkness behind Dillons grocery store.

The Dillons fuel center employee came over and told us that the man had thrown a bunch of Dillons property into the trash bin. He also told her that someone had hit him in the head. The employee asked us to stay and talk to the police as witnesses of what had happened. I couldn’t stay, as I had to get in to work early, but my wife gave a brief statement before she left.

Not long after the Dillons employee finished that last sentence, three Pratt Police Department vehicles came screaming into the parking lot, followed by a fire truck and an ambulance. The officers began talking to the employee.

Later that morning I started noticing, through my office window, multiple police cars driving up and down, across and around the 54 Plaza/Servateria parking lot. That’s something that rarely happens and

typically only around noon will I occasionally see a couple of patrol cars parked at Trinity Smokehouse BBQ.

Anyway, two of the police officers parked their squad cars and began searching behind the Servateria/Pratt Auto Equipment building. One officer peered into the Servateria dumpster. The other officer drove into the empty lot behind the Servateria/Pratt Auto Equipment and her cohort soon followed her to the same place.

Was the early morning drama at Dillons somehow related to the parking lot excitement?

It’s all a mystery to me, although I did hear a rumor, unverified, that a car missing its back end was found down in one of the gullies on the east side of town.