Two Houston police officers chasing a shirtless suspect on foot decided the best use of taxpayer resources was to jump into a random Uber and bark orders at the civilian driver. Spoiler: the suspect still got away.
Dashcam video circulating online captures the scene in Houston’s Heights neighborhood on the night of August 7. A man sprints past an Uber stopped at a stop sign. Two female Houston Police Department officers trail behind, not exactly setting any land-speed records. One officer approaches the car, flashlight in hand, and essentially commandeers the vehicle.“Hey, give me a ride over there please… Go, go that way… go go go go go,” the officer demands.
Army veteran and Uber driver Anthony Baines complied. He later described the surreal moment: “I’m just running off adrenaline. I am surprised. I’m shocked. I have cops ordering me to do things. I’m going to comply.”
Baines drove the officers around the block as they tried to cut off the fleeing man. It didn’t work. The suspect vanished. The officers eventually got out and resumed searching on their own. The man remained at large.
According to Houston police, the suspect had allegedly threatened to shoot a mother and her two children at an apartment pool. Officers had tried to detain him, he broke free, and the foot chase was on — until the foot part became optional.
Baines, who has driven for Uber for two years after serving in the Army, including a deployment to Iraq, said the whole thing felt like something out of an action movie. His wife was less entertained. She was unhappy that her husband had been pulled into a high-risk police chase he never signed up for and wasn’t being paid to handle.
“Two people signed up to be in those situations. Two people are getting paid to be in those situations. One of them wasn’t,” Baines explained, referring to his wife’s concerns.
Houston police confirmed the authenticity of the video and the incident. The department has not publicly detailed whether the officers faced any internal review over physical fitness standards, pursuit policy, or the decision to turn a civilian rideshare into a temporary patrol car. Citizens, for the record, are under no legal obligation to assist police in a chase.
The video has sparked the obvious questions online: If two officers can’t keep up with a shirtless guy on foot in a residential neighborhood, what happens when the stakes are higher? And is this the new standard, outsource the cardio to the nearest four-door with a 4.8 rating?
Baines finished the night by dropping the officers near their original location and then picking up his actual paying passenger, who had been waiting patiently through the chaos. The driver said he was glad he could help. Plenty of others watching the footage are less charitable about the optics of police needing a civilian chauffeur to chase a guy who already had a head start.
One more reminder from the driver’s wife, and from common sense: Not everyone who answers the call for backup is wearing a badge.
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