Wednesday
Aug222012
I chase down and (with help) catch a criminal
Wednesday, August 22, 2012 at 10:04PM I'm that guy who does things he shouldn't do when he least should do them. I could offer countless examples, but odds are you already know a guy like that. I'll take you to the place where I was, in the passenger seat of the car, my wife driving because my back hurt too much to steer. It is here, at a stoplight, where I should not have jumped out of the car, riddled with ibuprofen and muscle relaxers, and chased a criminal. But I did, because that's what I do.
We would catch him. The "we" includes another guy who did the smarter thing and chased him in his car. Me? I saw this dude weave through the traffic at a stoplight, walk up to a car, and smash out it's tail light. Sarah said, "that guy just smashed that car's tail light!" It was a retired couple in their convertible BMW. He just sauntered up, shouted "Well son of a bitch, your light is broken!" and smashed it. This is where I did my thing, kind of like a broken superhero who's more dangerous to himself than the bad guys. That pseudo-superpower called adrenaline had me jump out of the car and yell at him. He ran, and in running, the hood on his winter jacket blew backward and, like an idiot, he turned and looked right at me. Who does that? You're running from a crime and you turn and acknowledge someone yelling at you? For a moment are you thinking, "Oh, hey, it could be someone I know..."
So I see his face and in that moment he became the guy who stole my sweet Specialized Stumpjumper mountain bike in Durango, and my Raleigh road bike in Portland. He's the punk who smashed the window out of my car on Jason street, the dipshit doctor who left a hole in my mom's head after her brain surgery and, for the Hell of it, the dude who broke our blue spruce in our front yard. He's all bad. And I'm running. Running with this little sarcastic part of me saying something about back pain and dying. But this shithead I'm chasing is running in a winter coat, and he's slow, and somehow, as a flat-footed 38 year old with years of fast food barnacled to my bones, I'm nearly gaining.
He jumped a fence and ran through a backyard, at which point the smarter pursuant pulls up in his SUV and tells me he saw him head towards the alley. So I keep running, and soon the snarky voice in my head offers me this sticky note: "You're desperately out of breath, and alone in an alley."
Whatever. I take a short cut through an office complex and come out almost full circle to where I started. And I have this feeling that the dude went through the alley, threw off his coat, and is going to try to emerge as a different guy. Urrrrch! That's the sound of tires squealing to a stop. As I was just making my way to my wife and kids, who were still in the intersection and waiting for the police with the retired couple, the guy in the SUV screeches up to me. "I saw him! He's walking up there..."
The retired woman (of the Christofferson's, originally from Houston we'd find out) made a mild suggestion 
The boys meet a police officer while their mom fills about a statement .about the police handling it. But we were already gone. This man I'd never met and myself barreling down 1st avenue in Cherry Creek to catch up with this guy who was very clearly the vandal trying not to look like the vandal. We stopped, and without a plan, jumped out and approached him. It was weird, and I felt like the cop I least wanted to be, but remember, that's what I do.
The boys meet a police officer while their mom fills about a statement .about the police handling it. But we were already gone. This man I'd never met and myself barreling down 1st avenue in Cherry Creek to catch up with this guy who was very clearly the vandal trying not to look like the vandal. We stopped, and without a plan, jumped out and approached him. It was weird, and I felt like the cop I least wanted to be, but remember, that's what I do.
Without even saying so much as, "Hey we're two fellows in khaki shorts and sandals and we're going to take you down," the guy just starts denying he had anything to do with anything. For a moment I felt a little Dennis Franz, some NYPD Blue touched with Columbo, when Mike (I'd find that to be my crime-fighting partner's name) and I told him it was futile to deny because he'd perpetrated the dumbest crime on the planet: Attack some innocent people and then, after being identified, return to the vicinity as if somehow we'd all forgotten some dude beating cars with a stick in broad daylight. Then we just stood there quietly until the fidgety cat admitted everything.
I don't think it's always that easy. Some 45 minutes later, after statements and some subtle suggestions from the police that we probably should be more careful in our vigilanteism, Mike drove me to find my family. The boys were pretty nonchalant about their dad chasing down a criminal, and my wife...well Sarah has kind of come to expect these kinds of things. She knows that guy.
Reader Comments (4)
Nice work, Bullitt. Keep this up and you are gonna need your own theme song.
You are my Sully.