Lowa Boots, LLC, the German footwear maker, has a new line of tactical boots for the service professional. The promotional video is a dramatized police foot pursuit. I do not remember using parkour in any chase I was ever in.
I do remember being in an absurd foot pursuit when I was a rookie on Midnight Shift. It was like the chase scene from the movie Raising Arizona with dogs and houses and slo-mo’s of weird things passing by in the periphery. We interrupted a residential burglar and he took off between the houses.
Young and spry, I accelerated into the darkness to catch him. It was not the nicest part of town and each property was largely unkempt. I jumped over a whole yard full of Little Tikes plastic toys, makeshift furniture, several fences, a red wagon, and I think a cat.
Just when I was closing on the fleeing burglar, a car screeched to a halt behind me and I heard a guy yell, “Get ‘im! Get ‘im!” A K9 handler had dogged the badguy–and me! Holy sh*t, I hunched my shoulders and tried to run faster. Like it would help.
Thankfully, the K9 was well socialized to the officers. He ran around me at full speed and wiped out our fleet of foot felon. A dog bite and pair of handcuffs later, our suspect was in custody. Despite the fact that I had run six blocks through yards and car ports (but the dog had been in pursuit for about 60 feet), the handler was congratulated by the squad for his “catch.” No love.
And adding to the diminished importance of my physical efforts was the fact that the burglar had left his wallet and Florida driver’s license back at the crime scene. Oh, c’mon! I ran the guy down wearing heavy Corcoran jump boots, an aluminum PR-24, and a full sized Maglite, for Pete’s sake.
One of the old time sergeants walked over to me, where I was panting harder than the K9. Without a word, he clapped my shoulder and threw a wink. As he silently headed back to his cruiser, I could not help but feel I had been noticed. It was like I had been awarded a medal.
While wearing a pair of Lowa Zephyr GTX’s would not have changed the result of my foot chase, or given me outrageous acrobatic moves, I was none-the-less pleased with its outcome.
Randall
