One of the most exciting things that happens to almost every police officer is a foot chase. This story is from my second department that I worked at. At this point in my career I had already been a police officer for about a year, but because I changed departments, I was back in FTO. While riding around with my new FTO (we will call him Bob for this story), we heard over the police radio that a nearby agency tried to do a traffic stop on a vehicle. The vehicle, however, took off in an effort to escape. Bob recognized the vehicle, as this same car had pulled the same stunt with him a couple weeks prior. Bob immediately started driving and said: “If we see him, you start running and I’ll follow in the car. That way we can box him in.” I agreed, but I had doubts that we would ever find the vehicle.
He drove to the location where the vehicle sped off and escaped from him before. No sooner did we pull up and spot that exact vehicle and a male walking from it. The man saw us and immediately started running. Bob started yelling “Go, go, go!” I honestly froze for a second because I was so confused… like I said before — I never thought we would find the car or the male (especially not so quickly). I jumped out of the car and ran with everything I had. We ran through a parking lot and darted right out into the road. As I was sprinting behind the male, a truck driver almost hit me and ended up stopping just a few feet away. Nevertheless, we kept the chase going and continued running behind a school building. The male jumped over one fence easily… I did not. You see, there were a few things working against me. Firstly, it’s the summer in the south. The temperature was probably in the 90s and I was wearing an all black uniform. Secondly, I was wearing about 20 lbs of equipment and I just sprinted at least a quarter of a mile. So when I attempted to jump over the fence, I didn’t clear it. My shirt got caught on the top of this wire fence. This ended up flipping me and I landed on my back with a newly ripped shirt. I got to my feet and by the time I looked up, the male had already jumped over a second fence about 100 yards away. I started sprinting again and much more carefully jumped over the second fence.
As soon as I cleared it, I ran through a small wooded area and ended up in a neighborhood. I scanned the area for the male, but I couldn’t find him. Everyone was asking where I was, but I accidentally called out the wrong street because I was still new to the area. I yelled out 1st Street, when I was actually on Main Street. (These aren’t the actual street names; just examples.) Luckily, Bob knew where I was. In an attempt to cut off our foot chase, Bob proceeded in his vehicle. However, he made a wrong turn. The street he turned onto was 1st street, so he knew I wasn’t there. Bob immediately realized where I was and he called out over the radio “No, he is on Main Street.” Realizing my mistake, I said “Main Street, Main Street,” and then ran towards the house directly in front of me. Upon approaching the backyard, I saw the male standing there.. I called out the house address over the radio and before long 5 other officers were with me. The funny thing is that the male actually ran towards the police department. We were about a 30 second drive from it. Once we had the man surrounded, he slowly began to go to the ground. As he was leaning over, he was looking for another place to run to. I saw this and became angry. You see all of the officers there had a weapon out except for me. I was thinking to myself “no, don’t run away again. It’s way too hot for that.” I then charged at him. I took 3 steps before God had another plan for me. I stepped in a patch of mud and landed face first in it. As I’m laying in the mud, angry, sweaty, tired — and now dirty–, I hear someone uncontrollably laughing. I turned around and it was one of the officers. He saw me fall. He stopped trying to arrest the male and is now laughing so hard he almost fell down as well. I dust myself off and continue towards the male at a much slower and refined pace. One of the officers got to him first, and the male immediately started resisting. He tried to knock the other officers hands away from him and stand back up. I pushed him back down and after a brief struggle, we put him in handcuffs.
Afterwards, the shift congratulated me for staying with him during the foot chase. Other officers searched the car that he was driving, but there was nothing in the vehicle. The only issue with the car was that it had no insurance. If the male stopped the first time he just would have gotten a ticket and would have had to pick up his car the next day, but because he ran, he was going to jail. Every officer was confused as to why this male would make such a bad decision. After another officer dropped the male off at the jail, I went to the jail to give him paperwork. This paperwork needs to be given to the male directly. I walked up to him and the first thing he said to me was “thank you for not shooting me, I was so scared” and then he laughed. I stared at him confused. I told him “you’re welcome” and read him his charges. He didn’t argue with a single charge and just continued to thank me for not hurting him. The male was genuinely pleased that no one hurt him during his chase.
This really made me think. The male was so concerned about his safety but at every opportunity he chose to escalate the situation. I realized that this happens a lot. So many people will tell me that they are afraid of the police, but instead of listening to simple instructions, they choose to run and sometimes even fight. Their consequences would not be nearly as bad if they would just take a breath and just try talking through their problems.
Originally posted on my blog ( https://ourstoriesfrombehindthebadge.wordpress.com/ )
