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The chronicle's of a fugitive.
The day before I was set to have five days in a row off for a Boyscout camping trip (teaching firearms – .22L and 20 Gauge clay shooting) my partner and I decided to do some proactive stuff.
We’d already gotten our daily coffee and told our Sarge that we were going to get a winner.
The night was dark and there wasn’t much of a moon out to fill the sky with the much needed light that broken street lamps force you to crave. Cold was also in the forecast as it was quite chilly for the area, enough so that there really wasn’t much of anyone out.
Not even in the usually populated areas. To completely convey my point, not even the prostitutes were out.
My partner was driving and I was handling the radio for both the main channel and the squad channel. I didn’t have much of a job since there was nothing to dispatch to us or anyone for us to stop roaming the streets.
At midnight we were driving north bound on a two lane road in a primarily business area when we heard someone lay on a horn to our right. Looking outside my window I saw a silver Nissan completely blow through a stop sign heading west bound and I guess it was his way of warning people to get the hell out of his path because he sure didn’t stop, even when he almost hit our car causing us to do a little swerving action.
Apparently he didn’t understand what Lights and Sirens were either, because he didn’t want to stop for those too. In fact, as soon as we activated our emergency equipment he put the peddle to the metal.
I got on the air to start advising of what we had, which at the moment was at best a Aggravated Assault on a LEO while Batman chased. This guy was blowing red lights and stop signs like they weren’t even there, although now he was forgetting to even give the courtesy of honking. Luckily, there were no people out to hit. Our engines were screaming and my transmission was in violent protest of the activities.
After a minute the guy made a turn that was so reckless my partner just couldn’t mirror it and had to slow for the turn through the smoke screen. Of course, as soon as we completed the turn the car was nowhere in sight. Just darkness and empty streets.
Damn..
I BOLO’d the car out and asked if Aviation could try looking for it, which didn’t turn up anything. I figured he was laying low and my partner had the same thought. He was visibly upset since he hasn’t lost a subject in a car chase in a quite some time. My cruiser was fuming and I could smell the brakes on fire.
“Man, we’re going stay in this area. When that guy pops back up, we’re gonna nab him”.
I told my partner I was down for just about anything.
Three hours later we were heading east bound on another two lane street about 3 blocks from the initial chase when the same car came flying south towards a red light just a block ahead of us.
I guess he saw us the same time we saw him because he went from making the left turn and just running from the law, to turning his car insanely in our directly in what I can only describe as “ramming speed”.
He missed us and barely at that. I heard his heart beat he got so close. The sidewalk saved us but it was definitely on again.
This guy bounced on the devil and out paced us very rapidly. The Crown Victoria just isn’t a fast car and with him blowing red lights the same way he had earlier, he had the advantage. It’s our responsibility to decide when a chase is too dangerous and stop pursuit, this would be one of those times.
We backed off and the fleeing felon turned right, disappearing into an apartment complex.
Now my partner was fuming. He was two for two in losing this guy and my cruiser just wasn’t enjoying my partner driving her that much either. We aimlessly roamed the area in which we had last seen the guy flee into, about 20 minutes later, when actually found the car haphazardly parked in the middle of a parking lot, just sitting there.
We knew that the guy was watching the car since it was “hot” and normally when people run and ditch a car, they’ll wait about an hour or two to see if the cops are going to tow it or forget about it and then they’ll get back in and drive off again.
Well, my partner and I had 3 more hours of our shift left and as luck would have it, we were able to park the next block over behind another apartment complex that had a grated fence which made it hard to see us in the darkness but gave us a perfectly clear view straight to the subjects car.
It was only a matter of time.
The guy appeared from the west side of the car and started walking towards it cautiously, then straight past it. He looked around for cops, then walked back to the car. Still looking around, he got in it and started it up. I got on the air and started advising his car was getting occupied again and to wait for me to call it.
This time we had the advantage and could get directly behind him without him having us at a distance from the get go. He pulled out of the complex and started driving west bound until he hit the end of the street, at which point he went north.
Good, we hauled as much ass as the cruiser would haul and got right up on him, activating enough lights to make it look like day light.
He of course did exactly what we thought he was going to do, he started running again. At the next block he went east and was gunning it as fast as the car would go, about two blocks later he turned south, the immediately west….
He was starting to drive in circles which meant to me, bail out.
He drove in a 2 block circle at least three times before stopping at the same exact complex he started at and he bailed out.
Getting on the air I let the world know about the foot pursuit.
While my partner and I were chasing this guy, I noticed that he wasn’t nearly as fast as the usual crowd. He kept a good speed but nothing note worthy. Running around the side of the building and into a dark alley he ran around towards the back of the building and then around to the other side.
Now he was circling the building… although unfortunately for him, some developer somewhere decided a realllllllly tall fence (12 feet) should go between the wall of these two buildings he was attempting to run between which sort of left him in a bad position with no where to go but back.
He didn’t really have a chance to think about it as my partner reached him first.
Long story short, back in the squad car the guy wasn’t cooperating with us at all. He knew he’d been beat tonight and as the saying goes, “Sometimes you get the bear, sometimes the bear gets you”. Our caught fugitive then started throwing up in the back of my car, which actually smelled better then the fish smell it still had from a prank months ago… I told the prisoner, “Pal, next time you think you might be running drunk some more water and you won’t feel so sick when we catch you. That soda stuff causes kidney stones too”. He didn’t find that the least bit funny, throwing up on the seat / plexy glass again.. The LT showed up and immediately recognized this guy as one of the people in a BOLO list from about 2 months ago, where he escaped from an officers squad car, cuffed, through a window.
Sure enough, back at the station we found the BOLO flyer and got all of his information.
He had several felony warrants, most for violent crimes against people and LEOs.
After all of the paperwork was written and hazmat had cleaned out my cruiser, I charged him with 12 separate felonies in four pages on top of his warrants, most of which having no bond allowed, and didn’t get out of work until 10AM, four hours after my shift.
Needless to say, we were lucky in seeing this guy not twice, but three times in the same night and to finally catch him was well worth it. He’ll be off the streets for a long while.
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