FORT BEND COUNTY, Texas – On Tuesday morning, deputies arrested a man accused of leading them on a chase during rush hour on the Beltway.
Harris County Constable Precinct 7 said it arrested 47-year-old James Thompson for evading arrest. The constable’s office said Thompson had a warrant for a home invasion in Fort Bend County.
The end of the pursuit was caught on camera by a driver who was stopped right next to the suspect.
“The car got right up next to me and I look over and he’s just smiling away with no concern, going about his day,” said Taylor S., who was on his way to a job.
Taylor, who asked us not to use his last name, said he and a co-worker were on their way to a job in Mont Belvieu around 8:30 a.m. on Tuesday. They were sitting in traffic and noticed several police car lights and thought there had been a crash.
“We were sitting there. I noticed the cop was starting to get something out of the back of his car,” Taylor said. “I looked ahead and a cop had gotten out spike strips, put them in the road, started yelling at him, started pulling his gun out.”
The video shows the two constables with guns drawn pointing their weapons at the driver's side window of the car.
In the background, you can hear the officer yelling, “Open the door,” but instead, the suspect drove over the spike strip and wove through traffic.
“It was kind of shocking, I guess. You don’t really see that on the roadway every day and we didn’t really know what was going to happen,” Taylor said.
Taylor was still recording, and as the video shows, the suspect didn’t get too far.
Again, the officers had their weapons drawn, except this time an officer used a tool to break the car's back window. The suspect took off again.
“Yeah, they busted out the back window and they disappeared in front of the truck in front of us, so we didn’t really get to see how they arrested him or anything. We did get video of him handcuffed,” Taylor said.
He said he felt as if he needed to start recording at the beginning when the officers pulled out their weapons.
“As soon as I saw guns drawn as I said, you don’t see this every day. (I) started filming and had something to talk about later,” Taylor said.
He commended the officers for how they handled the situation.
“The cops did a great job on being calm and patient and doing their job. They did an excellent job of getting him,” Taylor said.