Meade Ave. resident offers $1,000 reward for cinder-blocker

While John McCabe admits 'dead or alive' is a bit of hyperbole, the Meade Avenue resident is serious about offering a $1000 reward for evidence of whomever put cinderblocks in the middle of his street.
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Though Charlottesville's a long way from the O.K. Corral, Meade Avenue got a dose of frontier justice this morning when flyers began appearing offering a reward for the body of a local outlaw "dead or alive." No, the crime wasn't train-robbin' or horse-rustlin', but cinderblockin'.

Last night, Meade resident John McCabe was driving back home when he saw a line of about six cinderblocks in the middle of the road near Meade Park.

"When I came up on them, I just stopped, got out of my car, and moved them out of the way," McCabe says.

But hours later, the varmint(s) had struck again, and this time McCabe wasn't so lucky.

"I came back, and most of them had been put back," he says, "and I hit them with my car."

While McCabe says his car sustained no noticeable damage, he did say he was "really pissed off," called the police, and this morning put up flyers advertising his reward for photos of the "location and suspect." He admits "dead or alive" was just an attention-grabbing "tagline," but he's dead serious about the $1,000.

"It can't just be some neighbor you don't like," says McCabe, "but if you bring him to my door, or bring me pictures, I'll give you the $1,000."

Charlottesville Police spokesman Lt. Ronnie Roberts says that the police got a call at 2:15am last night about the cinderblocks.

"An officer went by there, saw the cinderblocks, and moved them out of the road," says Roberts.

For now, McCabe lacks hard evidence, but he has his suspicions of who the bad hombres are.

"I don't think these are malevolent teenagers," says McCabe. "I think it's someone who doesn't want someone going 45 in a 25[mph] zone. But I'm afraid someone will not see them in time and swerve."

Roberts says police aren't investigating at this point, as whoever made the call last night neglected to leave a name.

"It ends there," says Roberts. "How can we investigate a crime if there's no victim? There's nothing here."

Still, Roberts says McCabe is free to offer all the bounties he wants.

"I would hope he would turn over any information to us," says Roberts, "but he's fine as long as he's not putting up flyers in inappropriate places, whether you interpret 'dead or alive' as a comical approach or something else."

For all of McCabe's hang-'em-high publicity, he says nobody else in his neighborhood has voiced any concern about the potential road hazard. According to McCabe, that says more about his neighbors than the lack of information.

"They're a bunch of p***ies," says McCabe. "They wouldn't complain if you started dropping bombs on them."

McCabe encourages anyone with any information to contact him via e-mail at . Charlottesville police can be reached at 970-3280