Some criminals make it easy

Some criminals are so dumb...

German Castillo comes to mind as a perfect example. When police in Anchorage, Alaska went to the motel that he was living in to arrest his stupid ass for misdemeanor assault and underage drinking charges, he fled.

He didn't get too far, though. Seems that his parents didn't teach him to look both ways before darting out into traffic and when he bolted into the roadway, he ran squarely into the path of an Anchorage Police cruiser which--naturally--wasn't able to stop before it struck German.

He survived and is now in custody. Whiny cop-haters and liberal criminal apologists will no doubt begin screaming about this shortly.

Bottom line: it happens. Crooks run, we chase them in cars...sometimes they zig when they should have zagged and we accidentally hit them with our cars. Call it an occupational hazard of being a fleeing criminal pedestrian in the roadway.

I remember the first time I accidentally clipped a fleeing criminal back when I was still a rookie officer. The guy ran right in front of my cruiser and even though I slammed on the brakes, my bumper tagged him on the leg and sent him sprawling. I was in shock for a second--I'd just hit this guy with my car in front of the public and other officers. I saw my job evaporating like steam from a grate. But as it turned out, it didn't hurt him. It just knocked him down and I and other officers picked him up and put him in the back seat for transport. I even got an "atta boy" from my sergeant for being on the spot and stopping the guy.

Of course looking back, that probably sent the wrong message, because when I accidentally clipped two more fleeing suspects in the next couple of months, I got another talking-to from my sergeant, and this one wasn't quite so complimentary. I haven't accidentally hit any more since. Ah well...We all gotta learn somehow, right?

Here's hoping that German learns to quit running from the police.