I was cleaning my bathroom tonight (usually a once-every-six-months-if-I'm-lucky operation) and just generally cleaning out the apartment because I was tired of being a slovenly bastard.  The phone rang.  For whatever reason...I can't get my phone to change ring tones on the charger.  In my pocket it plays a standard ring.  It sounds like a goddam phone.  On the charger, it blasts Disturbed's "Voices" at a volume much too high for so small a machine.  Ordinarily it scares the bejeezus out of me.  It was the captain calling for a mission in the helicopter.

He said that the gang unit had staked out a guy who had run from us earlier in the day.  Turns out this guy was wanted in several heinous crimes.  Mike says that HIS department thinks this guy was the one taking random pot-shots at his fellow officers the last few months.  Some boys tried to chase him earlier that morning and got a good chase out of it.  80 mph down city streets, wrong way...blowing red lights.  Sounded like fun!  Then he tried to ram two deputies in the process.  And for those who might be unaware, THAT kind of behavior does NOT sit well with your friendly neighborhood piggies.    Oh...it was fucking ON.  They lost him that morning.

But NOW, the gang guys thought they had him.  They had informants in the area and they were about 95% sure of where he was.  They called us in case he ran.

The first hour or so was pretty damn boring and I was starting to think we were wasting our time.  It sounded like the gang guys had him holed up at a house.  If that's the case, SOP's dictate that you get a warrant and let SWAT storm the house and kick the shit out of the occupants.  In a case like that, the helicopter is an albeit impressive though useless resource.  We orbited south of the target area for about 40 minutes so we didn't spook the guy.  Then we started running out of gas.  I was having fun just looking at random pedestrians, following cars, watching the heat venting from the natural gas turbines in the local power plant...infrared rocks.  We landed back at the hangar because the operation was local and it wouldn't take us long to get back on target.  We went to the office and the captain checked his e-mail while I read a book on aviation for the private plane owner.  It was a laymen's guide to flying.  Fascinating stuff.  I read about pitot tubes...I learned that small aircraft stall characteristics are different depending on if you have a rail-thin pilot or a monstrous fat-ass.  I finally understood what flaps were for.  Dear GOD I was bored!  The captain showed me brand new photos of Mercury from the space probe that just made a fly-by (he's really into amateur astronomy).  I told him about an article I'd received recently about the possible sources of anti-matter in the center of the galaxy (which actually WAS pretty cool to a geek like me, but not so interesting when I was re-telling the contents...).  Someone kick me in the nuts to wake me up!  Argh!

And then they called.  "He's mobile."  Oh, NOW it's on!  We ran out to the bird and spooled up.  Off we went!

The guys on the ground were trailing him and we caught up pretty quickly.  But...this guy was a seasoned criminal and no idiot.  It didn't take him long to realize he was being followed.  The guys on the ground told us that there were three people in the car.  A male driver (not the target), a female gang whore (MY words, not theirs...  ) and our boy.  The target was leaning down in the backseat, trying not to draw attention.  I locked onto our boy with the infrared camera and we tracked him.  He pulled into a gas station, faked parking and then shot up north on a side street.  Then he turned around and headed back south.  The undercover guys got held up at a couple of lights so it took a few minutes for them to catch up.  Once everyone was in place, they tried to stop him.

The driver (again, NOT our target) pulled over obediently and stopped.  He stepped out with his hands in the air.  As soon as he did, the target in the back hopped up front and BAM!  He was off.  And now, as they say on Sesame Street, it's time to play our game. 

The chase was fairly typical at first.  The ground units gave chase and called it out just like they were supposed to.  The guy, again, was blowing red lights, driving wrong way to avoid traffic and generally being a skanky ho.  He found an onramp to the freeways and it continued.  This was Friday night, though, and he was headed downtown into the heavy metro area.  He took an offramp to head downtown and the ground units called us to confirm we had visual.  I replied in the affirmative.

The ground units shut down as the scumbag took the ramp and the chase was ours.  Between the captain's eyes and my infrared, he wasn't going ANYWHERE.  He blew another red light, and made a left turn at probably 80 mph.  He cut it wide and clipped the median in the process.  At that speed, it destroyed his left rear tire.  He was on the rim for the rest of it.  He flew through downtown and we kept on him, keeping pace with ease.  We expected him to find a friendly house and hunker down.  And THEN we'd call SWAT and end his night with some unfriendly toys we like to call 'flash-bangs'.    But no...he just kept driving.  It would've been nice to have a Garmin or a Tom Tom up in the chopper with us because I couldn't see the exact streets very well.  We'd call out landmarks to help coordinate the ground units for another attempt but it was slow going.

After about ten minutes, he was halfway across the county and had not managed to shake us.  He was driving south and I glanced up VERY briefly from the FLIR screen to see if I could see landmarks.  I noticed a Carl's Jr. that looked extremely familiar.  Then I saw the grocery store I always shop at.  He was two blocks from my apartment...  I gave out the exact location and at that exact time, two deputies from the county sheriff's office found him and lit him up.  Chase two was on!

No left rear tire, and he still ran.  At one point, because he'd lost a tire, he took a curve too fast and almost ate it.  He bounced heavily over a median (the whole thing looked absolutely incredible on the FLIR...just like all those tv shows) and I thought that was it for the vehicle pursuit.  I thought he was going to eat it.  But he managed to keep going.  His car was not in good shape though.

Speeds slowed at that point as they flew through a residential area.  The deputy behind him got up and nudged his car in what is officially known as a PIT (Pursuit Intervention Technique).  Because of the guaranteed adrenaline in a situation like that, these maneuvers are often 'unofficially' known as a 'modified ram'.    To the deputy's credit, this one looked absolutely text-book.  The little Mercedes dutifully spun.  I zoomed in with the FLIR.  My brain was all sorts of excited.  "Here we go!  He's gonna run!  And the FLIR will make sure he doesn't get far!"  I'd guess that about 7 times out of 10 in my experience when a vehicle pursuit ends, the foot pursuit begins.  I was ready to go!  I was mentally DARING him to get his fat ass out and try to run on foot.  He would've glowed like daylight in the cold winter air on my screen.  DO it, fat-ass!  I thought.  DO it!

The pursuing officers exited their vehicles to go kick some well-deserved ass.  They were yelling for a K-9 unit which had not gotten on scene yet.  Thirty cops were converging on the spot as we watched it unfold.  RUN, fat-ass!  I watched the gray shapes in the FLIR with anticipation.  The driver's door opened.  Here we go!  The gray shape exited the vehicle.  Sweet!  And then he put his hands in the air and stood there until he was promptly tackled by the ground units.  Well, goddamit!    I wanted a foot pursuit!  Oh well.  It was a damn good job done by everybody present.

And within thirty seconds of the PIT, that street was just a veritable sea of red and blue flashing lights.  It was a BEAUTIFUL sight from the air!  I've said it before with regard to different incidents.  In our neck of the woods, '10-33' is the code for 'I'm getting killed, get here yesterday.'  If a 10-33 goes out, every cop in the county will come running to your side, and that's a GREAT feeling.  Likewise, we knew damn well who this evil motherfucker was.  He'd tried to run down two of my brothers earlier that day.  To look down from my seat up there in the chopper and see an overwhelming show of force to take this guy down...it was wonderful. 

And I watched very carefully from the FLIR.  It was done RIGHT.  There were no beatings...there was no overt use of force.  He surrendered and we cuffed him.  And it makes me happy to know that even with our justice system that (rightfully) gives the benefit of the doubt to the citizen and not the cop (innocent till proven guilty, ya know), this worthless excuse for a human being will probably spend the rest of his life in prison.  A true predator off the streets tonight. 

And it felt REALLY good to know that because of the captain's eyes and my xbox thumb, we were able to let the ground units stop chasing while we followed from the safety of the air.  That means fewer citizens were in danger of an accident caused by this fuck-nut and fewer cops in danger for the exact same reason.  It was a beautiful example of what can happen when we work together.  It was a night well spent.