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Saturday, July 28, 2012

It was CRAZY, y'all!

Some of you may have seen my facebook post Thursday. It said, 

"Felt like we just accidentally entered a scene from Law & Order...the only place I have ever seen a cop draw a gun! We just saw about 40 cops, guns drawn, after an apparent high-speed chase on Essen Lane! It was CRAZY, y'all!"

Um...yeah.

It was.

But i feel the urge to explain the story in detail. Because it was pretty amazing. And, horrible. But kind of awesome. (Probably not awesome to most. But I'm weird.)

So, Brad's car has been giving him trouble. After getting it fixed last weekend, it wouldn't start again on Thursday. So I had to take him to work. I left work a little early to go pick him up. I turn from Jefferson, to Essen Lane to his office which is right off of Essen. For those of you who don't live here, Essen is a four-lane road that is always FULL of traffic. But i never sit in it for too long because i only go there if we are carpooling to work for some reason & his work is close enough to Jefferson & the interstate ramp to where we don't have to sit in traffic for hours. 

ANYWAY.

So i turn from Jefferson to Essen & get to his office. Everything is just like any other workday on Essen at that point. I pick Brad up. He gets in the car & says, "Do you hear all those sirens?" This is barely five minutes later, mind you. I turn my music down (ha) & hear TONS of sirens. Nearby. What the world???

We turn out of the parking lot & see people coming out of other offices looking up at the sky. There are two helicopters slowly circling above Essen. We figured there must have just been a MAJOR car accident. Although how would ambulances & helicopters get there THAT quick. I mean, i was JUST THERE 5 minutes ago & nothing out of the ordinary was going on!

We get closer to the light to turn from the side street Brad's office is on to Essen. All four lanes are full & even though we can see a few lights from police cars, we can't really SEE anything because traffic is blocking our view. There is a ramp to the right to get on the interstate, but we actually need to go the OTHER way on the interstate. No can do. Police are not letting anyone go anywhere except off the interstate to the right. 

At this point, Brad says that there is a bank right there (across the street and to our right just a bit). We thought it must be a major bank robbery with a hostage-type situation. I'm waiting to get into traffic on Essen & a car moves out of my view & i see a police car with four policemen behind it, GUNS DRAWN! I said, "OMG! Their guns are drawn! Holy crap!" HAHAHA. 

It was exciting! So, sue me!

I did start praying, though. I was thinking some serious bank robbery was underway & that it was serious enough for cops to have their weapons ready. Yikes.

A car FINALLY lets me out onto Essen (people are so generous in BR traffic. NOT.). As we're easing closer to the light (the ramp for the interstate is just past the light. I know you don't care, but when i tell stories i get ALL detailed. It annoys people. I'm sorry! Ha.). Anyway... as we are passing it & getting closer to the ramp for the interstate, we see what is going on. And this is what we see... 

About 20 cop cars. About 40 cops behind those cars, with guns drawn & pointed at a truck. We didn't notice the truck at first. We just saw a bunch of cops, guns drawn, pointing toward the bank (kind of)...then we noticed that opposite them was cops pointing towards US (not US, but towards essen) - then we realize they're all in a semi-circle pointing towards a truck that had crashed. It wasn't a horrible crash but the guy was hunched over with his head hitting the steering wheel. We figured it was a high-speed chase that happened to end right by the bank (in some land to the right of it) & that he was either knocked out from hitting the steering wheel or just kind of sitting there. 

I didn't know he had just shot himself in the head. 

My window was rolled down & despite all the traffic, it was quiet. Strangely quiet. Tension in the air that you could feel several yards away. I honestly don't remember hearing sirens at that point, although i must have? But i did hear one thing. A policement in a megaphone yelling, "STEP OUT OF THE VEHICLE RIGHT NOW!" 

But the guy didn't move. At this point we are merging onto the interstate. 

It was SO like the scene from a movie that of course i wanted a picture. I mean, i have never seen so many cop cars in one place in my life! But that just seemed SO disrespectful! So i refrained. Ha.

Since we had to go the wrong way to leave, we ended up seeing it again as we passed over Essen from the interstate... even a cooler view from up high.

I'm sorry that i thought it was cool...especially since it ended in death. Obviously, the guy they were chasing was guilty of something. 

Turns out that an LSU cop tried to pull him over on LSU's campus. He had almost hit two pedestrians & a golf cart. A little reckless driving...maybe he was on something. When the cop tried to pull him over, the guy started flying across town. They were all over the place. It resulted in the LSU cops having to call BR & state police for backup. It was an 40-mile 80mph chase, ending on Essen when the guy crashed into another car & then shot himself in the head.

We found out later had drug charges & stuff like that on his record. What made him kill himself though? People with drug-related things on their record get pulled over - but it doesn't usually end up in a high-speed chase with the suspect killing himself?!

Anyway, it was crazy. What is really crazy to me is i was in that same spot just five minutes before they ended the chase! I am so glad i wasn't the one he hit or that i wasn't actually on essen when the chase was about to come to an end! It would have scared the mess out of me!!

Here is the article.


1 comment:

  1. Crazy! I heard about this...I can't believe you got to see it first hand! Wow!

    ReplyDelete

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