Actual Bizarre Police Photos! An exciting collection of strange, but true, pictures taken by cops on duty. Also an assortment of actual bizarre excuses motorists use on cops to get out of tickets
A terrifying drama ended after almost five hours when a kidnapper was fatally shot in the head by a sharp-shooter from the Douglas County Sheriff’s Dept. Deputy Jim Main, was the hero on a beautiful fall day last October, when he fired one shot from a scope-sighted, high-powered Remington PSS .308, he steadied on a bipod on a nearby hill. The lone bullet struck the kidnapper in the head, killing him instantly. Officers from a number of agencies, including the Oregon State Police, Douglas and Lane County, and the Salem Police Dept. were involved in the incident that involved a 100-mile chase after a gunman broke into a Salem day care center saying he was looking for a lost puppy. The man assaulted one of the teachers and kidnapped seven-year-old Kristina Jacobson. As officers chased the car, Lance Sterling Alexander, 25, increased his speed to 110 mph, while wildly firing his gun at other motorists. He hit ten vehicles and wounded three people, including a seven-month-old baby. When officers were able to position spike strips in the suspect’s path, the damage done to his tires, slowed him down. Lt. Greg Hastings, a spokesperson for the Oregon State Police, said when the suspect attempted to drive onto the median and get over to the northbound lane, he lost control of the car and it rolled onto its top. After the car rolled over, Kristina tried to escape but the man grabbed her leg, pulled her back into the car and pointed a loaded gun to her head. Det. Mike Estes, an experienced Douglas County Sheriff’s hostage negotiator, tried to end the incident without further violence. But Alexander began acting more erratic and officers on the scene became increasingly alarmed about the girl’s safety. Estes was able to get a cellular phone into the car. When the cell phone malfunctioned, a regular radio was tossed into the vehicle. The kidnapper soon became too agitated to communicate on the radio. That’s when Kristina took over. “She was amazing”. said Lt. Glenn Gunter of the Oregon State Police.” She figured out how to use the radio and key the mike. She did a great job.” Deputy Jim Main had been lying on the ground for a tense half-hour, his rifle aimed at the kidnapper. The tension was so great, that just moments before he fired his rifle, Main felt his concentration slipping. He sat up and took deep breaths to regain his composure. Main, who practices his shooting at least once a week and is constantly named to the Oregon’s Governor’s list of the top 20 police marksman, was able to get his focus back. He gripped his rifle, steadied the cross-hairs of his scope square on the suspect’s head and when the moment was right, fired the bulled that met its mark. “When the shot went off, everyone just froze. There was dead silence”, Lt. Gunter said. “Just a split second before I shot, I saw Kristina lean back so I could see part of her chest.” Main said. “As his face came down, I followed it with the cross hairs which were positioned right in the middle of his face.” “You have to completely turn off your emotions, thoughts, everything,” Main said, “In the last few seconds I thought about nothing except keeping that guy’s head in the cross hairs of the scope.” Main had a good view of the suspect. “He had a .380 automatic and .38 Deringer,” he said. “He started yelling that he could see our scopes aimed at him and that we’d better leave. He said he hadn’t shot any cops yet, but wanted to. I could see the barrel of his gun pointing right at me. I kept thinking that the top of my head was vulnerable, that he would shoot me and there would be no vest to safe me.” Main is quick to point out that there were a lot of heroes besides him that day. “Those deputies that were ordered to storm the car as soon as they heard a shot had a lot of guts. At the time they had no way to know it was my bullet they were hearing. It could have been the suspect firing and he could be aiming for them.” Main also says that the state troopers who were involved with the highspeed chase, were in one of the most difficult situations a law officer can face. “The guy was shooting at other drivers to get the police to stop chasing him. So if they stop, he gets away with the girl. If they keep it, maybe an innocent motorist will be wounded or killed . That is a terrible position to be in. It was Main’s sixth hostage incident in the last five years. Two of these ended up in shootings. “In the other incident, we had a Pennsylvania man who had killed three people on his way to Oregon,” Main said. Jim Main did not take the traditional route to a career in law enforcement. Back in 1973, while pursuing a career in the new field of computers, he became a volunteer with the Douglas County Sheriff’s Department. After becoming a reserve officer in 1980, he finally joined the force in 1985 at the age of 40. Firing the shot that saved Kristina Jacobson was Main’s second shooting. The first was a straight-out survival scene. “I was working narcotics. We were trying to serve a search warrant when we were ambushed. A small guy jumped out of a camp trailer and started cranking off rounds. There was debris flying everywhere. I made the decision to shoot based on survival. It was going to be either him or me.” The man was slightly wounded and Main is still angry at the way the case was handled. “I was disgusted at the way the criminal justice system treated this guy,” he said. “He convinced the jury that he only fired one warning shot and got off pretty easy.” Although Jim Main takes pride that his skills saved Kristina, he’s suffered with the after-effects all cops deal with when they are forced to take someone’s life. Main said he’s been helped by talking to a psychiatrist and that both he and his wife have benefited from participating in the support group for those involved in a traumatic incident which is run by the Oregon State Police. But it’s the “what if” that still plague Jim Main. “When you’ve been through something like this, you can’t help but keep focusing on all the things that could have gone wrong. What if he had moved just as I got the shot off? What if the little girl had moved and I ended up shooting her? What if one of my fellow officers bumped me or said something to break my concentration and I missed? All those thoughts keep running around in your mind.” Talking to other people in the Oregon State Police critical incident group has been a sobering experience. “I met one guy who had to shoot someone 16 years ago and he’s still dealing with it,” Main said. “And I know that somewhere deep inside I’ll be dealing with this - thinking about it - for the rest of my life.
