When Nashville police officers Andy Wright and Jeff Cherry observed a possible drug buy in a known high-drug-sales area, they approached the man who had made the buy. But when they began to question him, the criminal struck Officer Cherry in the face and took off running. The chase was on.
For nearly half a mile, the officers pursued the suspect on foot. Then he ran down an embankment and over some railroad tracks into a rail yard, crossing just in front of a long freight train, Cherry said.
Officers Wright and Cherry came to a sudden halt as a train barreled down between the officers and the suspect. Says Cherry, “The train separated us from him, but we knew he couldn’t run up the other side because more police were coming from that direction.”
The two officers knelt down and watched the unbelievable scene that unfolded.
“Looking under the train, we could see the suspect standing there. We watched him closely because we might lose him if he simply ran next to the train,” Cherry said.
Instead, standing perfectly still, this genius reached out and tried to grab the handrail on the train, which was moving at about forty miles per hour. It immediately knocked him to the ground and bounced him about ten feet down the tracks.
“We couldn’t believe he did that. It’s amazing that his arm wasn’t yanked off,” Cherry says.
The rocket scientist staggered to his feet and tried to jump on the train again. From a standing start, he just sort of threw his body up against the moving train. It knocked him down once more, only more violently this time. This time he didn’t get up. His second attempt to jump the train had left him unconscious.
“We waited another couple of minutes for the train to pass while the suspect just lay there. After the last car went by, we scooped him up and took him to the hospital. They kept him overnight for observation, and he was booked on the following day.”
The bad guy now knows the difference between a rail yard and a prison yard. Let’s hope he also studies basic physics while he’s in the joint.
“We couldn’t believe he did that. It’s amazing that his arm wasn’t yanked off.”