Texas Uber driver on his way to pick up passenger sees shirtless man run across street. Then two cops jump into his car: ‘ordering me to do things’

In a scene that sounds like something out of an action movie, a Houston Uber driver says he was waiting at a stop sign when cops jumped into his car and ordered him to “go go go!” As reported by Click 2 Houston, the incident took place on Aug. 7 on E. 7 1/2 Street and Oxford Street in The Heights neighborhood.

Driver Anthony Baines, an Army veteran and Uber driver for two years, says he was on his way to collect a passenger when a shirtless man sprinted past Baines’ car, closely pursued by the two female officers. Apparently out of breath, the cops effectively commandeered his car while he was still at the wheel.

Thankfully, Baines’ military experience allowed him to keep his cool. As he later told Fox26: “I was just really in shock about what was taking place. This is something that I kind of think about only happened in like action movies where somebody was pursuing a person and they call for a civilian to help… I just was in the heat of the moment running off that adrenaline.”

“Two people are getting paid to be in those situations. One of them wasn’t”

The suspect was later confirmed to be a man who had allegedly threatened to shoot a mom and her kids at an apartment swimming pool, reportedly because he believed they had stolen something from him. It seems that when the two officers arrived to detain him he managed to escape and sprint away from them, too fast for them to keep up.

Despite then driving around with the officers as they gave him instructions, the suspect managed to escape and, as of writing, remains at large. Dramatic stuff, but maybe he’d have preferred this to the Uber driver who picked up this bachelorette group.

It was only once the adrenaline had worn off that Baines considered whether joining trained law-enforcement in the pursuit of an armed suspect is really such a great idea: “Two people signed up to be in those situations. Two people are getting paid to be in those situations. One of them wasn’t, you know.”

Houston Police Officers’ Union President Doug Griffith underlined that nobody is obliged to help cops pursue a suspect: “There’s nothing that prohibits anyone from doing it. There is also nothing that prohibits them from going, ‘No, I’m not going to do that, I don’t want to be involved.’ There’s nothing that forces or compels anyone to help out.”

While all this drama was going on, the passenger Baines was supposed to collect was still waiting for his ride. After dropping off the cops, he drove a block over to collect them for what was presumably a less-exciting journey.

Baines later said this was “by far the wildest experience” he’d had as an Uber driver, but said his wife wasn’t in a good mood: “She was not that happy that I allowed myself to be put in such a situation.” Still, at least he wasn’t in a violent altercation with a fellow Uber driver.