As a patrol sergeant, I’ve seen some unbelievable things and have been placed in a number of ridiculous situations. One experience in particular involved a naked man, a jock strap, and a bloody knife. The true story goes like this:

It was early morning, in one of the most congested areas in Las Vegas. I had just started working my shift at the “Baker to Vegas Run”— a long distance running competition for police officers. My role at the event was to supervise a handful of patrol officers that were directing traffic and safeguarding the event. I began driving along the route to make sure everything was in place. Just as I was settling in, a van filled with off-duty Los Angeles police officers pulled up beside me and honked to get my attention. I rolled down my window, at which point one of the guys yelled out, “Hey, there’s a naked guy running Eastbound, interfering with the race!”. I acknowledged his concern and told him that I would look into it. I think he was surprised by how unsurprised I was but hey, this was “Sin City” after all.

I flipped my car around and begin heading West, in the direction of where this naked man was supposed to be. At the same time, the female dispatcher came across the radio broadcasting in a soft and calm voice, “Attention all officers, we have a report of a white male adult running Eastbound on Flamingo from Decatur along the route”. She then calmly added, “the subject is wearing nothing but a jock strap and he is bleeding profusely from his groin area”. As a sergeant, you don’t usually expect to be the first to arrive and in this case, I certainly hoped that one of my officers would beat me to the scene. After all, the first one there would have to take custody of a likely insane, naked, sweaty guy that was bleeding “profusely” from an area of his body that should remain private at all times.

Unfortunately, this was not my lucky day. As soon as I hit the next major street light, I saw the subject running to my left. He was running on the same path that the runners were using, wearing nothing but a white jock strap, you know, the one that straps around to only cover the groin area. And yes, he was bleeding from his jock strap!

I jumped out of my car and yelled out, “Stop!”, hoping that my command presence would be enough to diffuse the situation. The subject slowed down a bit, turned his head towards me and made eye contact. For a moment there, I thought it was over but then suddenly, without hesitation, he took off like a bat out of a hell. My training kicked in and I starting taking chase. It’s important to note that I’ve been in a number of foot pursuits but in most cases, the chase is short lived. Either the suspect is out of shape or his baggy clothes quickly hamper his ability to run. This was not the situation at hand though. This naked guy was bare foot, running in almost perfect form and at a rate much higher than when I first made contact. By this point, it was rush hour and only God knows how many citizens were filming this unbelievably funny police chase. I was certain that I was now a YouTube star in the making.

Nonetheless, I continued to chase and after a couple of minutes I finally began to close the distance. This however, is where reality set it. What in the hell was I supposed to do once I came close enough to the suspect. Traditionally, I would increase my speed just before contact and simply tackle the suspect as if I was playing high school football again. However, the nakedness of the situation resulted in some reasonable hesitation. After all, a police officer rolling on the ground with a bloody naked suspect is just too much of a national headline. I then thought maybe I could just grab a part of his clothing and pull him down, at least until I realized that all he had on was a jock strap. Although pulling on the strap would make for a funny cartoon-like ending, I figured it would probably rip and leave me with an even worst situation. I then determined my only option was to pull on his shoulder with the hopes that he would just fall. Considering I only had a matter of seconds to think of a solution, this seemed like a pretty good plan. Unfortunately, I didn’t account for momentum. As soon as I grabbed the suspect’s shoulder and pulled down he and I began to fall. The speed in which both of us were running just didn’t allow for one of us to fall without the other.

So there I was, right in the middle of the situation that I had hoped to avoid. The suspect was on the ground but still resisting arrest and I, despite the embarrassment, was wrestling him into custody. After a brief struggle, I was able to handcuff the suspect and stand him up. I began to walk the suspect to my patrol car at which point he yelled out, “Take me to the Rabbi, take me to the Rabbi!”. My first thought was, “how and the hell does he know I’m Jewish?!?”. The suspect then filled the moment of silence with, “I’m Jesus Christ”. Obviously, there was some mental issues at play here but I haven’t even gotten to the best part. “Why are you bleeding”, I asked. The suspect turned to face me and in all seriousness stated, “I circumcised myself and lit my house on fire”. Certainly, figuring out where his house was and sending firefighters there was a priority but at the same time, I had to first know how and the hell someone circumcises himself! So I asked in which he politely responded, “I used a seal pup knife sir”. A seal pup knife! For those that are unfamiliar, a seal pup knife is a smaller version of the infamous Rambo knife or any other military combat knife. So yes, not the best tool for the job!