Man spends stimulus check on electric scooter, now missing from home
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OMAHA, Nebraska (WOWT) — A man in the Dundee neighborhood spent his stimulus check on a new electric scooter only to find it missing from his backyard weeks later.
Mike Thompson believes someone stole it from him either late Wednesday night or early Thursday morning. He hoped it was only an April Fools joke. He tried to keep the scooter out of sight by cloaking it with a black cover under his back deck.
“On my morning walk with my dog, we were coming down the sidewalk and I saw the covers,” Thompson said. “I knew something wasn’t right because I put rocks on it so it doesn’t blow off.”
As the cover blew in the wind, gone was the newly purchased Pride Mobility scooter. Thompson says he had it for three weeks, which he bought with his latest stimulus check.
He replaced an old scooter—about twenty years old, outdated, and unreliable. The same condition describes Thompson’s knees after a career fixing roofs.
“You can’t get parts for [the scooter] because it’s so old,” Thompson said. “I had the opportunity to where I could get a new one, and I got it, but it’s long gone.”
Thompson says he is disabled to the point where he’s unable to work anymore. He’s only comfortable walking within a four or five-block radius of his home. He can walk his dog up and down his street and get to his nearby pharmacy, but says getting groceries isn’t so easy without his wheels.
He hopes the scooter finds its way back to him.
“That would be the ultimate [hope], but I really don’t foresee it getting found,” Thompson said.
He admits he doesn’t have a serial number for the blue scooter he purchased second-hand. He hopes somebody spots it, wherever it may be, with its reflectors and busted front corner.
“I just want my scooter back,” Thompson said. “My dog’s confused because we ain’t going to the park no more. We can’t walk that far.”
Hopefully his scooter isn’t far either.
Thompson says he’s talking to Omaha Police. He’ll try taking the bus or getting a ride from friends, one of whom set up a fundraiser to purchase a new scooter and some sort of security for it.
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