It started out simply enough: A Texas police officer noticed a pickup truck driver acting suspiciously on Tuesday, so he ran the license plate.
It turns out Officer Roye’s suspicions were well-founded: The Chevy Silverado in question had been reported stolen six weeks ago. Naturally, Roye hit his siren.
But things ceased being simple at that point.
The driver quickly accelerated and snaked through traffic in Hedwig Village, KHOU-TV reported. Then at an intersection, he bolted from the vehicle — while it was still in gear.
Roye ran after the suspect and began struggling with him after he became tangled in a barbed-wire fence.
“He was dead-set on escaping me,” Roye told KHOU. “And we can’t let that happen.”
Enter Nick Montalbano, a 45-year-old construction contractor who was at a restaurant with his wife when he heard the sirens and then the moving pickup with no passengers.
Montalbano got to the truck, stopped it and removed the keys. Then he lit out to assist Officer Roye, now dealing with a suspect who was “putting up a pretty good fight.”
With Montalbano’s help, the 19-year-old suspect was safely on the ground — but not without some added drama he wasn’t prepared for.
The suspect had a gun.
“The gun was on the ground, under the fence, out of reach,” Montalbano told the station. “I said, ‘It’s over there out of reach. Don’t worry about it.’ And the whole time we were wrestling with the suspect …”