A California man apparently found a reliable way to get away from police: run somewhere the officers weren’t willing to follow.
According to the Monrovia Police Department, officers tried twice to arrest the wanted man while he was out walking. Both times, police say, he bolted onto a freeway and escaped.
Attempt No. 3 required considerably less running.
The same man allegedly walked into a Panda Express while officers who knew exactly what he looked like were sitting inside eating.
They recognized him immediately.
Two Escapes Onto The Freeway
The man had been wanted on a no-bail felony probation warrant, according to the Monrovia Police Department account reported by ABC7.
Police said officers encountered him twice while he was walking and attempted to take him into custody.
On both occasions, he allegedly ran onto a freeway and got away.
The department later released body-camera video showing portions of those encounters, according to Officer.com.
Exactly what made the freeway such an effective escape route isn’t spelled out in the department’s public account. But chasing someone on foot into active freeway traffic creates an obvious additional hazard, and whatever the officers did during those first two encounters, the man remained free.
One YouTube viewer summed up the eventual problem for him:
“That’s what happens when the cops know your face. 😂”
The Third Encounter Was Different
At about 8:30 p.m. on July 17, two Monrovia officers were sitting inside a Panda Express on the 600 block of West Huntington Drive when the man walked into the restaurant.
This time, there was no freeway between him and the officers.
Bodycam footage begins with the officers at their table. One looks toward the entrance, apparently recognizes the man and gets up.
Seconds later, both officers are moving toward him.
They take him to the floor inside the restaurant and place him in handcuffs.
“What did I do?” the man asks.
One officer has a fairly straightforward answer.
“You’ve been wanted,” he tells him. “You’ve been running from me for like a month.”
The man has not been publicly identified, and police have not disclosed the underlying conduct that resulted in his probation or details of the alleged probation violation. Monrovia police told Fox News that the department’s social-media post and accompanying footage constituted its public statement and that it would not provide additional information.
Police Had Their Own Theory
Monrovia police weren’t particularly solemn about how the month-long effort ended.
“At this point, we’re not sure if it was good police work, bad timing, or the irresistible smell of chow mein,” the department wrote.
“Either way, an arrest was made.”
There was still the matter of the interrupted meal.
“And don’t worry the officers went back for their food and finished their chow mein,” police added. “Priorities.”
The department released the footage in late August, more than a month after the July 17 arrest.
The Takedown Got Its Own Reaction
Not everyone watching the footage thought the officers needed to move as quickly as they did.
“Not that serious to take him down like that America is a jok,” one commenter wrote.
Another called the officers “Real heroes, tackling a hungry homeless man.”
There is an important problem with that second description: nothing released by police identifies the man as homeless.
What officers did say was that they recognized him as a man wanted on a no-bail felony probation warrant whom they had already unsuccessfully tried to arrest twice.
So while viewers can argue about what they see in the takedown, the officers weren’t confronting a random Panda Express customer based on something that happened inside the restaurant.
They believed they had finally encountered the same wanted man who, according to police, had already escaped them twice.
And this time, there wasn’t an on-ramp handy.