Looking back, Patrick Rosario realizes it probably wasn’t the wisest thing to do.</p>
<p>Still, as it turned out, the burglars who tried to loot his Bellevue home got a surprise of their own as they began their escape: Rosario had made off with their getaway car.</p>
<p>As he puts it: “The good guys win for once.”</p>
<p>As one of the thousands of Washington Mutual employees who were recently laid off, the former technology-program manager happened to be in the basement of his three-story home Tuesday afternoon, building a fiberglass part for his stylized car. His wife, Jamie, was at work; his 2-year-old son, Thomas, at day care.</p>
<p>Around 1:35 p.m., Rosario heard what he thought was a knock at the front door. Then a loud noise. For a second, he thought it might be the Thursday housekeepers, but then he realized it was Tuesday.</p>
<p>“I thought, there’s something going on here.”</p>
<p>Rosario, 32, walked up the stairs, peered through a one-inch opening under the door into the main living area, and saw a pair of unfamiliar jeans. Then, a sound he did recognize the serpentine slap of electric cords against hardwood, as one of his three flat-screen TVs was being hoisted away.</p>
<p>He already was dialing 911 as he hurried back down the stairs in soft, flat-soled Pumas, grabbing a hammer in case he was detected. He ran out the back door toward the front of the house.</p>
<p>The 911 dispatcher was on the phone as Rosario peeked around the corner, hiding behind a garbage can. That’s when he noticed the exhaust sputtering out of the white Ford Windstar van parked out front.</p>
<p>Seeing no one, he quickly approached. The keys in the ignition, the humming engine, the unlocked driver’s door: It was all too perfect.</p>
<p>Against the 911 dispatcher’s advice, Rosario announced he was going to take it. What jury in the world was going to convict him, he thought?</p>
<p>He drove up a steep hill away from the house, figuring whoever was ransacking his home wouldn’t be able to keep up on foot. He stopped a few blocks away in front of a friend’s house and waited for police.
…