An unidentified criminal, in a stolen Enterprise rental car, led police on a chase across six Texas counties on Friday, reaching speeds above 100 mph along the way. He covered over 125 miles, with plenty of cops in hot pursuit and a chopper overhead. The cops ran out of gas and had to make a pit stop but they got him anyway. They didn’t even get to shoot him.
Right car for the chase
It appears that the unnamed driver arrested in Texas on Friday agrees with P.J. O’Rourke. The chance of sudden violent death at an early age is fun. If you’re going to be leading police on a merry high-speed chase at a hundred miles an hour, you better have the right car.
As O’Rourke declares, after extensive research, “you have to get a car that handles really well. This is extremely important and there’s a lot of debate on the subject — about what kind of car handles best. Some say a front engined car; Some say a rear engined car. I say a rented car. Nothing handles better than a rented car. You can go faster, turn corners sharper, and put the transmission in reverse while going forward at a higher rate of speed in a rented car than in any other kind. You can also park without looking, and can use the trunk as an ice chest. Another thing about a rented car is that it’s an all terrain vehicle. Mud, snow, water, woods — you can take a rented car anywhere. True, you can’t always get it back — but that’s not your problem, is it?” Even better is having a stolen rental car.
The Nissan Versa had been boosted from an Enterprise Rental Car lot on Houston’s west side several days prior. Police spotted it in the parking lot of a hotel in Houston along I-10 and Highway 6 so tried to pull the driver over.
He “sped away.” Police are used to that, so “took off after the man, following him as he headed south on Highway 6 to Highway 90 in Sugar Land.” The chase was on. Without a care in the world, probably because of all those drugs in the car with him, which O’Rourke would also consider necessary equipment for such an adventure, “the driver made his way to Southwest Freeway and raced all the way through downtown Houston.”
According to experts like O’Rourke, “most people like to drive on speed or cocaine with plenty of whiskey mixed in. This gives you the confidence you need for plowing through red lights and passing trucks on the right. But don’t neglect downs and ‘ludes and codeine cough syrup either.”
O’Rourke is more in favor of joyrides than high-speed police chase type excitement but hey, it takes all kinds to make a world, the Republican party reptile would be the first to admit.
Cops out of gas
“It’s hard to beat the heavy depressants for high-speed spin-outs, backing into trees, and a general feeling of not giving two f–ks about man and his universe.”
Perfect for a police chase exceeding “speeds of 100 mph.” He managed to “evade police for a total of 125 miles through six counties.”
Police weren’t happy that the suspect got so much better gas mileage that they had to make a pit stop in Splendora to refuel. They still had the state chopper backing them up and were able to get “other state agencies” to chase the guy for them while they stopped for gas.
At one point, the suspect made a spectacular U-turn and headed back the other way. “The driver made it as far north as Livingston before turning around and heading back towards Cleveland.” It was caught on camera and ended up in local news reports.
Police tried stop sticks more than once but he managed to evade the spikes. Eventually, all good things must come to an end and the chase did too, “just northeast of Houston, in the city of Cleveland.”
The man was cuffed and “drugs were found in the stolen vehicle.” After all was said and done and nobody was injured or killed in the process, the stats say he covered “125 miles across Harris, Montgomery, Liberty, San Jacinto and Polk County” The charges will be filed in Harris County.
