EXHIBIT TWELVE
On June 6, 2000 at about 5:45 PM I called a friend. He informed me that he and a few others were going out to dinner and that if I wanted to join them I would have to hurry. I drove north on Hollister Avenue until I heard an explosion. Within a few hundred feet I realized I had what I thought was a blowout. After pulling over I had the tire changed in five minutes and I noticed the curious hole located right on the corner of the tire between the sidewall and tread of the nearly bald radial. I kept looking at the strangely mounded steel severed steel cord that was lumped up on one side, towards the center of the tread.
After a transit mixer began unloading aggregate concrete on the highway in front of me I realized that this strange hole was a bullet hole and the cord was forced over from the slug skittering across the pavement and hitting the tire at the contact point with the road. Now I remember that there was something rattleing around inside the tire, the slug. At the time I could not figure out how a hole like that could be made.
This is a Declaration from the transportation manager of the tire company that took the used tires from Sears. This pitiful evidence is all that I have of this event.