[Steve]

I haven't posted any stories for a long time, but after getting those plates, and working on 0327 today, I feel inspired.

One hot summer afternoon, July or August, 0255 and I were patrolling on freeway Interstate 5 when I decided to stop a speeder. We were in the middle of nowhere, 30 or 40 miles from civilization, so there was no fill or backup available anyway, but since the subject vehicle had an out of state plate I gave dispatch my location and asked for a rolling check for wants as we prepared to stop the vehicle. Within seconds dispatch came back that the vehicle was reported to be stolen.

I activated the red spotlight and to my surprise, the violator yielded almost immediately to the shoulder and stopped abruptly. 0255 was not even completely stopped when the sole-occupant driver exited the vehicle and took off running into an almond orchard next to the highway. I put out that I was in foot pursuit, yanked 0255's parking brake on and took off after him. He had a couple hundred feet head start as I headed into the orchard. It was a very hot day, 105 degrees in the shade, and although I was wearing the short sleeve shirt, I was also wearing a protective vest. Soon I was sweating like a toad and although I was young and in very good shape, I was running out of steam in a short time. I knew this was going to be an endurance event. There was really nowhere to run or hide; whoever gave up first would lose. Fortunately I could keep the perp in visual sight as I closed on him, and the trees weren't big enough to give him a chance to hide and ambush me if he had a weapon. Finally, he became exhausted and collapsed flat on his back in the dirt. As I ran up to him I could see him laying there, beet red, soaked with perspiration, gasping for breath. He didn't have the energy left to fight if he even had wanted to. He gasped "Just go ahead, shoot me!"

"Nope", I replied, "Way too much paperwork." I rolled him onto his stomach, cuffed him, got him up on his feet, searched him, then began the march back to 0255. Towed the recovered veh, then we headed to Los Banos city jail.

From the time the foot pursuit started until the time we were back must have been 20 minutes or more. Both the subject veh and 0255 had sat there on the shoulder, running the whole time. I wonder how that must have looked to passing traffic, the two vehicles sitting there with no one around, no one even in sight. I was glad no one stopped to take 0255 for a test drive. The truckers probably knew what was going on, they always did...for 20 miles in each direction.