This could have been much, much worse — and Missouri’s governor-elect knows it. Sheena Greitens, who will shortly become the state’s next First Lady, found herself staring down the barrel of a gun while sitting in her car outside a restaurant in St. Louis. Eric Greitens offered praise and thanksgiving for police, who responded quickly and arrested three teens shortly thereafter. That ended a spree that could well have ended in murder:

Sheena Greitens was sitting inside her vehicle in the parking lot of the restaurant when her car door was suddenly opened by a suspect, police said.

The suspect pointed a gun at Greitens and demanded her property, police said. Greitens gave the suspect her laptop and cellphone.

That wasn’t the only cellphone the robbers stole that night. Another phone got stolen from a car in the same parking lot, and police used it to track down the perps, who were driving a car they had stolen earlier in the evening. After a short chase, police arrested the trio, finding the stolen goods from Greitens. As it turns out, they had attempted another armed robbery before they confronted the wife of the next governor.

The suspects have a very complicated future ahead of them. The total as known so far is two attempts at armed robbery, grand theft auto, burglary, and flight to avoid arrest. Two of them are underage (14 and 15), but the district attorney certainly has the option of trying them as adults. Who wants to bet on the option of a DA deciding to go easy on the perps who pulled a gun on the governor’s wife?

Governor-elect Grietens offered fulsome praise for police on his Facebook page:

After the past two years of unrest in Ferguson and a confused and vacillating response from outgoing governor Jay Nixon, Greitens had already made support of law enforcement a key part of his agenda. This will only reinforce the former Navy SEAL’s resolve in that direction. Get ready to hear a lot more about “blue lives matter” in Missouri.