The old saying, “It takes one to know one” may be true, but police in Georgia may have discovered a corollary to that old adage when they found it takes one to stop one.
Officers of the Gwinnett County, Georgia, police department had a really big dilemma on their hands when someone jacked a 75,000-pound front-end loader construction vehicle and began driving it erratically out on the area surface streets, menacing dozens of cars along the way.
The problem, of course, was how to stop a giant tractor. The police department certainly didn’t have anything big enough to impede the tractor’s path. So, what to do?
The incident started at 11 a.m. on a late March Saturday when an officer was called to a disposal business in Norcross, Georgia. The business owners called police because an ex-employee jumped into their front-end loader and started driving it around their work site, according to KSNW-TV.
When an officer responded to the call, the man in the stolen dirt hauler drove right past him and out onto the local surface streets, despite the officer’s orders to stop the vehicle and exit the cab.
The whole fiasco was caught on multiple police cameras.
The officer quickly alerted the station about his problem and eventually it became a slow speed police chase as the tractor jacker began driving aimlessly all over the roads.
As the thief made repeated U-turns and charged past police cars, more officers became involved, blocking streets and trying to keep other drivers safe.
Have you ever operated a front-end loader?
“This is unbelievable,” an officer is heard saying on his dash cam video.
Other video of the incident shows an officer asking the waste management company employees if they had any other vehicles of comparable size that could be used to waylay the jacker who was causing such chaos on the roadways.
Finally, an employee jumped into a second front-end loader and took off in hot pursuit of the thief with the police close behind.
At one point a large trash hauler also tried to get into the act to stop the front-end loader.
The video shows the two front-end loaders warily circling each other like giant sumo wrestlers, one looking to get away while the second looked for ways to pin his opponent down.
The waste management employee finally got himself in a position where he could use his bucket to jam up the side of the errant tractor.
The employee was ultimately able to push the thief’s vehicle over and prevent him from driving it.
The police officers then swooped in and pulled the troublemaker from the cab of the stolen tractor, putting an end to the chaotic morning.
A 38-year-old man who was reportedly a former employee of the waste management company was arrested. After being checked out at a hospital, he was taken to the Gwinnett jail and charged on counts of criminal trespass, theft by taking, fleeing or attempting to elude, reckless driving, second-degree criminal damage to property and obstruction, according to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
Fortunately, no one was injured and no other vehicles were damaged during the disgruntled worker’s tirade. It should also be noted that the officers deserve a front-end load of credit for their novel way of stopping the tractor jacker without resorting to gunfire.
