Tuesday, August 22, 2006

Border Patrol!

After dropping the girls off at school this morning, I'm driving north on I-35 just south of New Braunfels. Ahead of me, I see police lights suddenly flashing and think, "Ah-ha! That pickup trooper has caught someone speeding." (There's a DPS trooper who works this section of the highway in a big black-and-white Chevy Silverado or somesuch). As I catch up to the scene, I realize that the flashing lights are coming from a green-and-white Border Patrol Blazer (or Explorer--I didn't look that closely) which is pulling over a big white dualie. Another Border Patrol Blazer is coming in from the access road. The dualie stops on the shoulder right as I pull even with it, and a young man in his early 20s--obviously a Mexican national--comes flying out of the passenger door. He takes off running down the shoulder of the road, against the flow of traffic. He's wearing a bright yellow polo-style shirt with darker horizontal striping--funny what details stand out. Four Border Patrol agents give chase. As I'm watching in my rear-view mirror, the fleeing illegal suddenly cuts right, across the heavy flow of traffic. At this point I crested a hill and lost sight of the drama, but damn, traffic wasn't light by any stretch of the definition. And flying along in the 70 mph range. That guy must've been 27 kinds of desperate to try a stunt like that. Hope nobody got hurt.

And yeah, it looked exactly like something you'd see in the movies. Very strange all around.

Now Playing: Astrud Gilberto The Best of Astrud Gilberto

1 comment:

  1. Anonymous9:19 PM

    You were in the right place atthe right time. It was some experience wasn't it? I remember when I was a teener, I was in the scene where 2 guys riding on a motorcycle were suddenly shot by a fast moving car. Oh yes it was some scene but a dangerous one too.

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