Billy is on his way home from the library. It’s about 7 p.m. one night last month. As the 15-year-old boy walks home, a man driving a green Lumina pulls up along side of him.

The driver, a guy in his late fifties, offers to drive the boy to a nearby town to look for girls. The boy pays no attention to the man, so the guy begins talking in what police described as "sexually explicit language." The boy tells the old guy he’s not interested, but the man continues to follow anyway.

In a final attempt to make the man leave him alone, young Billy pulls out his Sprint cell phone, the one with the camera feature, and begins taking pictures of the guy.

Mr. Pervert doesn’t like that, so he jumps out of his car and tries to grab the boy. There’s a bit of a struggle, but the kid is able to break free and take off running through back yards. The old dude tries to follow, but it’s the jumping of fences part of the chase that soon makes him give up the pursuit.

Later, the boy’s mother drives her son to the police station where the boy reveals the pictures he recorded — including a photo of the car’s license tag. Is this kid a regular Sherlock Holmes, or what?

A short time later the pervert is arrested. He’s charged with attempting to lure a juvenile into a car, criminal restraint, and simple assault. The penalty for conviction of all three offenses could result in up to five years in prison. That doesn’t seem like nearly enough time for such crimes committed against a child. The man is being held under a $25,000 bond.

A Sprint spokesman told Associated Press they’d never heard of camera phone technology being used to foil a crime. Maybe not, but can’t you see the potential for cracking down on criminals? The Sprint-man needs to pick up on that.