Interesting Encounter and Incident

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Cosmoline

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Dec 29, 2002
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Los Anchorage
Tonight on my way home from work I ran into some troubles that thankfully ended well but offer some opportunity to rethink things. As always I feel like I was caught unaware and could have done better. I'll give a simple rundown:

--I'm riding my bike, stopped at the curb of an uncontrolled downtown intersection with a busy one-way street and traffic coming from my right. I'm looking right, waiting for a gap which can take some time to show up at this spot.

--Suddenly I hear a pounding to my left, and turn to see a small car with dark tinted windows. The passenger door opens and the car bolts out into traffic as a woman screams for help and demands to be let out. My brain processes all of this a bit slowly, and by the time I realize I've just seen something serious the #$@ driver has shoved his way through traffic and is on the other side of the street zooming away too fast for my eyes to get the plate.

--The drivers, who STOPPED FOR HIM, then continue driving past me as I yell and point "STOP THAT CAR!" Honestly I didn't know what else to yell, and was PO'd they were not going to let me through after letting the woman-beater through. This is more proof that cars are a species of livestock.

--But then a van swings over and blue flashing lights come on. It's some kind of LEO, and he's seen me and drives down after the suspect. Thank the Lord!

--I follow once traffic finally lets me through because I am a witness.

--I reach the scene four blocks down where the car is stopped, the woman is out and standing with several bystanders 50 feet away. The driver is out and walking around, which surprised me. No cuffs? Well the LEO in question is a fed of some alphabet soup variety, and is calling APD to come help.

--The suspect, as with all predatory creatures, is adept at sensing opportunities. So when he realizes this plainclothes bearded fellow ain't APD, he starts walking fast. He doesn't get into his car thankfully. Bearded man follows close behind, and I follow both of them to keep eyes on the situation.

--At this point I wasn't too worried about a shooting, because Beard Man is armed and if the suspect was I would have expected him to have already shot it out before I got there. But just in case I have the Makarov in the man purse ready as I ride along behind these two.

--As before, the cars let the suspect walk past but BLOCK me. If the incident tells me anything it's that car drivers have tunnel vision even worse than my own. NO car drivers apart from the LEO took any effort to stop or offer assistance or even paid the slightest attention to any of this. They just shoved their way past and kept driving. It was pedestrians and bike riders who noticed, in addition to the beard man.

--After about seven blocks and a little inconsequential tussle between the suspect and the beard man, an off duty APD officer arrives. Obviously an old hand, he has the suspect cuffed in seconds. Another officer arrives and takes my statement. I tell her I'm armed but that I didn't need to draw. She doesn't care about that, though.

Overall, I'm incredibly grateful for the LEO who took action. If he hadn't been there I would have had to watch that woman vanish into the night with no way of knowing what ever became of her.

Personally, I don't see how I could have physically intervened short of taking a shot. I could have shot at the car as it fled, but the other cars were zipping along as well and I simply didn't have enough information to know what level of danger the woman was in. Because of those terrible tinted windows (which really ought to be illegal) I couldn't tell where she was in the car either) It was entirely possible I was being "punked" at that point. That sort of thing has happened to me before. So I chose not to draw.

But while I was doing this analysis, I neglected to get the plate! I had a chance but was focused on the woman trying to leave. Well there wasn't squat I could do for her then. If I'd grabbed her I would have dislocated her arm as he drove off, maybe worse. And there was barely any chance to do that because those awful car drivers were just making a hole for him, then closing it right back up. It's the plate that matters. And without that I have only a vague description of make, model and color. I'm terrible with car make and model, too. I hate the things. Hate them more after tonight, too.

On the other hand, I'm proud at the way pedestrians and cyclists intervened here. Some to comfort and protect her, and myself to be a witness at least. Another man on foot approached as they cuffed him to say he'd seen him toss her in the car a few minutes earlier and had been trying to find out where he went. The cops were great but 911 was a busy signal, so my call to them did squat. Thankfully beard man had a direct line.

I don't feel that I went too far. I never drew or physically restrained the man. I was just eyes and ears. I told him he should stop and that he wasn't helping himself. He ignored me but seemed pretty frightened. I was about twice his size but I kept a good look at his hands to see if he was pulling a weapon. If he had, I planned on moving laterally across his field and only shooting if the beard man went down. I had confidence I could make the shot even from a bike. But my greater concern was a fight breaking out, which almost did happen. Beard man had no control of the situation and obviously wasn't trained for this kind of police work. The contrast between him and the old APD fellow was telling. The suspects seem to be able to sense authority and weakness. I did not try to stop him myself because I'm also not trained for that and could kill or paralyze someone that size if I screwed up. Plus I knew APD was on the way, and I just wanted to eyeball him. And a citizen's arrest is fraught with legal peril.

Any thoughts?
 
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glad that you are OK - quite a lot of excitement for one night.
you are right that it was a terrific response by the original LEO who saw you on the side of the street.

i was "with you" on everything you did ... until you started following the suspect on foot. i understand why you did it. but a lot of stuff could have gone wrong there. for one thing - he could have turned and shot you when he realized that you were doggedly following him. and for another thing, if it had gone into a struggle on the sidewalk, it would have been hard later for a court to understand why you were in pursuit.

all that being said - good job.
if that lady screaming for help in the car had been my wife - I would have been glad about what you did.

these things come down to a judgment call ... you made a judgment and it came out OK.

CA R
 
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Yeah I'm wondering about the wisdom of my choice to follow. But I am an officer of the court, and this is my turf. So I did have some legitimate interest in at least keeping an eye on the situation in case it became a legal issue of detention and arrest and beard man needed a witness to attest to steps he took. It was a risk for sure. If the bearded fellow had better control I never would have intervened to that extent, but he didn't quite know what to do when the suspect challenged his authority to detain. So I decided to split the baby and not physically assert myself but just keep an eye out.

I'm not happy the fellow tried to grab the suspect, and I'm hoping that doesn't turn out to be legally troublesome. In this case though I don't think anything important transpired in the minute between that incident and APD making a proper arrest. Alaska has some peculiar criminal procedure rules I doubt the fed knew, so he really had no business trying to actually detain and arrest the man. He wasn't going to be able to escape at that point, in the middle of downtown with the cops closing in fast.
 
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Cos... I don't have a problem with anything that occurred here - glad it turned out okay...

What you noted about most driver's behavior in traffic (having tunnel vision and only concentrating on their own needs....) is pretty typical, and exactly what I'd expect.

If there's ever anything needed for most police agency's crime prevention efforts, it's an on-going outreach to their communities on how to be a good witness... In the moment it's tough to stop, call it in, and very briefly describe what's happening so that local cops can get the info and respond. I'd have called "possible abduction, female yelling help, then a description of vehicle with direction of travel first" all other info follows that.

The standard call to 911 -might not be the best way to call it in if you're in an area with mulitiple jurisdictions. If you're lucky enough to know what city you're in, having that agency's phone number in your cell can get a much quicker response some days... Down here in paradise (south Florida) I worked in Dade county -- there were 27 different departments in that county the day I left police work - now there are more... Miami, the town everyone knows about isn't even the big player there....

As the incident is over - you still get an "attaboy" from this corner. All it takes is one honest citizen to stand up and call it in to get a police response up and running. Unfortunately many, many, others saw what happened and didn't lift a finger.
 
Yeah I'm wondering about the wisdom of my choice to follow. But I am an officer of the court, and this is my turf. So I did have some legitimate interest in at least keeping an eye on the situation in case it became a legal issue of detention and arrest and beard man needed a witness to attest to steps he took. It was a risk for sure. If the bearded fellow had better control I never would have intervened to that extent, but he didn't quite know what to do when the suspect challenged his authority to detain. So I decided to split the baby and not physically assert myself but just keep an eye out.

I'm not happy the fellow tried to grab the suspect, and I'm hoping that doesn't turn out to be legally troublesome. In this case though I don't think anything important transpired in the minute between that incident and APD making a proper arrest. Alaska has some peculiar criminal procedure rules I doubt the fed knew, so he really had no business trying to actually detain and arrest the man. He wasn't going to be able to escape at that point, in the middle of downtown with the cops closing in fast.
You are now officially a "decent" human being.

That is all :)
 
Turf just means it's my hood. I live there. Not a major factor but it weighs into the balance. For example I'm not worried about misunderstandings with the authorities and I know the legal boundaries and customs well. I wanted to make sure a neutral pair of eyes kept witness to any incidents with the fed. Hopefully that won't be an issue but sometimes when and where a person is "arrested" can become very important.
 
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