Catching a Murderer

CATCHING A MURDERER April 14th 2007
I was supposed to be on the east side of the city but I had forgotten my lunch box back at the police department. I was driving back to get it when I saw a "shots fired" call come up on our in-car computers. Despite how exciting one of these calls sounds they are rarely anything more than an old person calling in to say they think they heard gunshots in the area. I fully intended to keep driving on to get my lunch when I heard dispatch come over the radio calling the two sector one units. "Units be in route to the area of Felice street in reference to shots fired. We can hear people screaming in the phone and it sounds like someone saying that a man has been shot." Needless to say this caught my attention and I advised dispatch that I would be responding with the units. I was close with the call occurring less than a mile from my location. I had just turned northbound headed toward the call when Dispatch again came over the radio "Units responding be advised the suspect fled the scene in a black and gold ford explorer." Only seconds later I saw a car matching that description come around the curve going southbound. I immediately got on the radio and advised the other officers that I had spotted it. I whipped my car around and sped up to close the distance between my car and the explorer. there was one car in between it and me, but I was able to see the explorer make a left hand turn and head eastward. I passed the car in front of me and followed the explorer turning left. I closed in behind the vehicle and advised the other units of my location. My mind was running a million miles an hour trying to tell everyone where I was while watching the vehicle and trying to wait for backup so I could light him up. I followed the explorer through a couple of turns and then he made a fateful decision. He turned left and came to a halt behind a car stopped at a railroad crossing for a train. I came to a stop and announced on the radio " he is stopped for the train Im gonna light him up." I jumped out of my car and noticed another police unit pull up behind me. I was still paranoid that this might not be the suspect's car so I didnt draw my weapon, however I did tell the driver to put his hands out the window, which was down. I told the driver twice to put his hands out the window and then in what seemed like slow motion the car began turning toward me . I drew my pistol and began screaming for the driver to stop the car. When the car passed within five feet of me the driver looked me in the eye as I had a gun pointed at his face and said "Your gonna have to shoot me." He then aimed the car straight at the officer behind me and I thought he was gonna hit him. I came within an inch of shooting the driver to stop him from hitting the officer he was aiming at, but at the last second I thought that if I had fired and the rounds missed it would have struck the officer or the third police car that was pulling up. As it turned out the officer managed to jump out of the way at the last second and the suspect raced around the police cars and back onto the road northbound. One of the officers began yelling 10-80 which is code for a chase and we all jumped in our cars and took off after him. We chased him about a mile until the road comes to a weird intersection where you can go straight or go off at an angle to the right. The suspect and the first units (yes I was at the back of the chase cause it took me the longest to get turned around) went straight so I went right betting that the suspect would take a right up ahead. I was kind of right because the suspect did attempt to make the right turn I predicted but he failed to take into account the fact that the roads were slick from recent rains. The result was his vehicle left the road and rolled over and down an embankment before coming to rest in a parking lot at the bottom. The first unit chasing him lost sight of him and continued down the road while the second turned into the parking lot he landed in. I slid to a stop as the second officer jumped from his vehicle. I drew my pistol and began approaching the car when the other officer yelled "He's running" I looked up and he was running down the side of the factory headed for the back. I took off after him with three other officers. I ran as fast as I could and It felt like fast than I ever have before. As I approached the rear of the business the first police car that had driven by the wreck turned around and came down the road cutting the suspect off from climbing the fence at the back of the factory. He began running back toward me but was up on the embankment. I honestly thought i dont know how I'm gonna get up there and then I ran up the side (which on any other day I would have fallen down in the most ungraceful way). This brought me almost face to face with the suspect who had slowed to a walk. The other officer had gotten out of her car and was behind him screaming for him to get on the ground. She saw me in front of him and screamed "TAZE HIM!" I reached for my tazer and tried to draw it from its holster but couldnt get it out I yanked again and it finally came free. By this time the suspect was perhaps four feet away and I fired the tazer. I heard the pop and saw the darts hit him in the chest and though how long is this going to take to work and then next thing I knew he was laying on the concrete in front of me. The other officers ran up and began struggling to get his arms behind him, they managed to get one but he fought over putting the second one behind his back. I yelled for him to put his hands behind his back and when he refused I pulled the trigger again and gave him another five second burst of the tazer. He finally complied and was handcuffed.
About this time we hear the officers that went to the scene of the shooting screaming on the radio for EMS to hurry up because they have a male with two gunshot wounds to the chest.
We also called EMS to come check out the suspect who was complaining of chest pain and was skinned up from sliding on the road when I tazed him. They transported him to the hospital and we came to find out he had a broken collar bone, broken ribs, a damaged pelvis, and a collapsed lung.
Later in the morning we were told that the victim died while in surgery.

We learned that apparently the two men were friends and had been smoking meth together when they began arguing. The suspect said he couldnt take it anymore so he pulled out the gun and shot him point blank in the chest. The gun was later recovered under a car where he had thrown it just before wrecking his car.
This is a perfect example of how drugs can make you do some super-human things. The suspect crashed his car, received those extensive injuries, was thrown from his car, and yet managed to get up and run at a dead sprint and almost climb a fence before finally being tased not once but twice. Just blows my mind.