SANDY — Often what is stolen is gone for good and that could have been what happened when thieves stole a trailer full of lacrosse goals from a local business this week.
However, a community of athletes came together in a way the bad guys probably weren’t expecting.
Fish Bartlett said he returned from a trip to Colorado to learn a trailer full of lacrosse goals parked outside of his shop, Tribal West Lacrosse, was stolen over the weekend.
“I said, ‘oh, the trailer’s gone!’” Bartlett recalled during an interview with KSL TV.
Surveillance cameras captured an unknown white Chevrolet Suburban hauling the trailer away.
“We had a hitch attached and a boot lock on it, and they drove with the boot lock on, sparking out of the parking lot,” Bartlett said.
The shop owner quickly turned to social media, sharing photos of the trailer and goals, surveillance images of the SUV and offering a $2,000 reward.
Fearing the worst
Even at that, however, Bartlett feared the worst.
“I thought (the goals) would be, you know, already in the smelter, like somebody needed it for scrap metal,” he said.
The lacrosse community — which Bartlett had seen grow exponentially over the past 22 years — was apparently watching closely.
“Immediately, I kind of recognized that it looked familiar and tried to pull up the post and it looked pretty damn close,” said 17-year-old Alex Sundquist, a lacrosse player at Brighton High School.
Surveillance cameras captured an unknown white Chevrolet Suburban hauling a trailer full of lacrosse goals away. (Tribal West Supply)
Sundquist was on the clock Thursday with a Sandy City crew when he spotted something familiar from Tribal West’s Instagram post in a parking lot at 8840 S. 250 East.
“Yep, it was the trailer,” Sundquist said.
Sundquist immediately contacted Bartlett as well as Sandy police and the shop owner and officers arrived at roughly the same time.
Bartlett said the support he received from the community — including offers of people bringing goals to him for an upcoming tournament this weekend — was “fantastic.”
He said he was giving Sundquist the $2,000 reward and was glad to do so.
“Hats off to him — his lucky day,” Bartlett said. “I’m happy to give him that money because it would have cost a heck of a lot more to replace 16, 24 goals and nets and a trailer.”
For Sundquist, the reward was simply finding the stolen property.
“He was my first coach when I started lacrosse, I’ve been to numerous camps put on by Tribal,” Sundquist said. “It’s pretty nice to help him back.”
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