Wrong Place at the Wrong Time

So it was just after Christmas and it was the end of my work week. I was going to be taking the next several weeks off, so I wanted to have a nice quiet night. I had everything caught up and things were going well.

All of the sudden we get a robbery with a gun in progress at a local liquor store. I am not far, so I head to the area and am pulling up just after the area car arrives. I get out of my car and begin to walk in to see if he needs any help, when one of our unmarked traffic units goes out on a car in the parking lot. As he is walking up to the car, the driver takes off. The Officer said the driver matched the description of the suspect, so I go running back to my car and join the chase. I get caught up with it all up the road and pass by the unmarked unit. I was the third marked unit behind the suspect vehicle. The roads are kind of nasty with ice and snow. We have good snow banks on each side and the Sargents are telling us if we get a chance to put him in a snow bank. He heads up a road that only heads up to the mountains and is only one lane in each direction. He is running into both lanes trying to get away from us and all over the road. He makes a right turn onto another road that ends at the next main street up. From there the suspect can only head back down the mountain to town. Other officers are setting up up the road with spike strips and we are looking for opportunities to stop him. He makes the bend and is heading back to town, when the lead car sees an opening and attempts to force him off the road. As the officer makes contact with the rear side of the suspect vehicle, the suspect vehicle spins a full 360 degrees and the patrol car ends up barreling into the ditch. The patrol car pops back out but busted a tie rod, so he is out of the chase. The officers with the spike stips are just ahead and the suspect is able to get around them. The officer in front of me all the sudden gets on the radio telling me to pass him. The he says he hit the spikes and has a tire going flat. I pull up around him just as we are getting back into town and approaching another T-intersection.

Just as he is about to make a right turn at the intersection, I move into position and put my push bumpers into his right rear tire. He spins around and I have my eyes locked on the driver expecting at anytime for him to pull out the gun he had used to hold up the store and start shooting. Luckily that does not happen, but he opens the door and takes off running. I reach down to open my door just as another patrol car come flying up about 6 inches to my left to block the car from behind. Had I opened my door a half second sooner, it would have been gone. After he comes to a stop, both of us jump out along with several other officers that have arrive and chase him into the wooded area just the other side of the road.

He made it about 200 feet through the foot deep snow and then tripped over the railroad tracks. We all pointed in on him expecting him to pull out the gun and began yelling at him to show us his hands. He keeps digging his hands into his pockets out of our sight. We notice that he is having trouble pulling one of his hands out of the pocket and decided to take the opportunity to pounce on him and take him into custody. Several of us jump on him and try to get his arms behind his back to cuff him. We are able to get his left hand back, but he kept fighting with his right hand. Finally I was able to get his right hand pulled out from under him and got him cuffed up. As we pat him down, we don't find a gun but we do find some drugs, meth and heroin if I remember right. We get him hauled back to the street and get pulled off into a parking lot.

Another officer brings the clerk from the liquor store over to make an ID on him and amazingly, it is not the robber. The officer that has custody of him interviews him and find out the reason he ran is he was in the area for a drug transaction and thought that was why we were trying to bust him. Talk about the wrong place doing the wrong thing at the wrong time. Then because this was not related to the robbery and the chase ended in my area, guess who got stuck with the main report. Yep, yours truly, there goes my nice easy night getting off on time. I had to do the main report as well as take the guy before the magistrate for bail and then to jail. I also had to fill out forms regarding the damage that occurred to my car from hitting him and then the other police car coming in and hitting my front corner. I only wish I had a dash cam to have caught it all on video.