UMPD BLUES
Sometimes I wonder why some people attempt to flee from us, but then if you catch them and ask them why did they run, the excuses can almost be comical. However, if you can put yourself in their mind, their mental status at the time of the pursuit, the reason made perfect sense to them at the time it popped into their mind, but in the grand scheme of things it didn’t make any sense. I’ve had my fair share of foot and vehicle pursuits, but this one that occurred one night ended differently than my other ones. This pursuit ended at his mother’s house in the driveway, which as soon as he pulled in I just knew he was going to make his way into the house. I ended up jumping out of the unmarked Dodge Charger and rushing towards the driver side of the car, weapon drawn, to cut his path to the front door off, but he easily gave up.
He was very compliant with my instructions getting out of the car, and even replied that he wasn’t going to resist and he kept true to that word. The confusion to other units of where I was, not at that time, but was kind of comical as I could hear other units with their sirens blaring going around the area I was at, but not to my exact location. I might’ve been with the suspect for at least five minutes or less as I waited for other units to respond, which at that time the chase was called off and then called back on again. At the time the chase was called off, it had already ended, but in the attempt to advise the on duty supervisors of this change, no one could hear me over the radio. So not only was I in a location that other officers had issues finding, but I couldn’t radio to anyone about the current status of my pursuit. Finally when other units arrived on scene, they were unaware that the chase had ended several minutes prior to their arrival.
Although when my sergeant arrived on scene, she didn’t appear very happy, but I don’t think it was directed at me; however, it was expressed to me that she was more pissed off at the lieutenant giving the authorization to continue the chase, after she had already called the chase off. As I stated before the pursuit had already ended prior to her giving the order to end it so that whole transmission between the Sgt and Lt was a moot point to my situation. Going back to what I was talking about earlier in the post about the reasons that people give for fleeing, his reason was that he didn’t want his car towed. Why he didn’t want his car towed? Because the registration plates didn’t belong on the car and it wasn’t insured. I ended up taking him into custody I believe for an open warrant or on another charge, but he didn’t put up much of a fight or verbal abuse. How the pursuit started was kind of weird, but ended safely with no one getting hurt.
I was traveling eastbound on 193 when I saw this vehicle coming up behind me pretty fast, passing me in the right lane. As the traffic in front of us was slowing down to a red light, he came up so fast that he ended up tailgating another car, which drew my attention even more towards him. So I decided to get behind him and run his registration and determined that he shouldn’t be on the road and turned on my red and blue lights. Well, he put on his hazard lights and started trying to weave through the row of cars in front of him. It was at this point I knew that he was going run. Once the cars parted ways from in front of him, he stomped on the gas and took off. The pursuit lasted for maybe a few minutes, but it became a clue to me that he was attempting to go home when we got on to a service road from the main road. In due time this clue became reality when he pulled up into the driveway of his mother’s house. His mother never gave us any issues being out there, which was kind of a surprise to me but I took it as a good sign that she didn’t.
Henry Scott
FRANKLIN'S FIREPLACE 