Guy on Horse Lassoes Bike Thief

Culprit never made it out of the parking lot
By Rob Quinn,  Newser Staff
Posted Jun 11, 2016 7:48 AM CDT
Guy on Horse Lassoes Bike Thief
Robert Borba is being called a hero after chasing down an alleged bicycle thief with his horse, Long John, and nabbing him with a lasso in a Wal-Mart parking lot,.   (Denise Baratta/The Medford Mail Tribune via AP)

A woman who called for help when somebody stole her mountain bike in a Walmart parking lot Friday had some Old West-style justice delivered when a rancher on horseback chased after the culprit and lassoed him. Robert Borba, who recently settled with his family in Eagle Point, Oregon, had been loading supplies into his truck when he heard the calls for help and quickly got his horse, Long John, out of his trailer. He held the thief lassoed by the ankle until police arrived, CBS reports. Borba asked for his rope back when police had the suspect, a 23-year-old transient from the Seattle area, in custody.

Borba, 28, and his family had stopped at the Eagle Point Walmart for supplies ahead of a trip to brand California. "I seen this fella trying to get up to speed on a bicycle,” he tells the Medford Mail Tribune. "I wasn’t going to catch him on foot. I just don’t run very fast.” He says he grew up competing in rodeos but left the circuit to settle down and work as a rancher. "I use a rope every day, that’s how I make my living," he says. "If it catches cattle pretty good, it catches a bandit pretty good.” (More Oregon stories.)

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