Two other police came up and said, “Get him! Get him!” So I went dashing down the street.

But then I realized, “Ah, I don’t see him.”

Two women hanging out their window said, “He went down there, officer.”

There was a door in the side of the street. I just go in there, walking into the dark until I came out the other side into a series of back yards. Then I began running and jump over fence after fence. I finally come to the last yard where the building rounds the bend into an L. I go running in.

There I see this poor suspect towering over me, but huffing like he was going to have a heart attack. I am just standing there as cool, as non-winded as possible. I had run track in school.

Here I am confronted with him. And I hadn’t had that much practice and I wasn’t really that tough. I’d never have made it in the regular police force. I just wasn’t that aggressive. But all I had to do was say, “OK, you’re under arrest, turn around, put your hands on your head, walk to the wall.”

And he just did everything I said. I didn’t even touch him. He was so astonished that I would show up. He was just so exhausted. After I had put him in cuffs, my two partners showed up.

Then things got interesting. I was the only white person there–black suspect, two black transit police officers.

And they were beside themselves, saying, “Hold him up. Let me hit him!” He had apparently assaulted one of our female officers on her way to work. So here I am, protecting this suspect. Once I had my suspect arrested, I lost all my anger. I thought they were pathetic at that point, because they were defenseless. You had done the worst thing you could do, which was to take away their liberty. I never understood the temptation to beat them further. Even though in the pursuit I’d be agitated, angry.

This was a great big muscular kid, in for assault with a deadly weapon and robbery. It was in the LA riots, in Pasadena.

This guy walks into a little Mama-Papa Korean-owned liquor store, carries out a bunch of stuff, puts it in his car, walks back in, pushes the old man out of the way, a little old Korean guy, carries more stuff out.

The Korean guy stops him at the door.

The guy lifts up a beer bottle, says, “Get out of my way or I’ll crush your skull, you little (racist remarks) and got arested.

In the courtroom this guy came up out of his chair, up over the counsel table. He got nailed by a Pasadena policeman and my fill-in baliff Brianwho used to pitch for the White Sox.

They had him pinned on counsel table. Brian, who is left handled, is leaning over him holding his arm so his gun’s on his left side. I don’t like guns in the courtroom.

This guy’s on his back, and really built.

That arm that Brian is leaning over and holding keeps coming up toward his gun. Every time it came up it was getting closer and closer to the gun. I’m watching this hand getting closer and closer.

So I stood up on my bench and jumped into the well. My robe is flying. I happened to be wearing tennis shoes that day. I jumped down and grabbed the guy’s arm and cranked it behind his back until Brian could get over the railing. It took all of three seconds.