Escaped Inmate Tackled In Ohio Store By Customer, Ends Manhunt
An escaped inmate was recaptured in an Ohio general store Thursday night, ending a manhunt lasting all day. He wasn’t brought down by police though.
Instead, a customer who recognized the convict from a mug shot displayed at the counter took it upon himself to tackle the man.
Sources at AP say the escaped convict, James David Myers, had escaped from a Mansfield prison in rural north-central Ohio earlier on Wednesday, for his birthday.
Apparently managing to travel eight miles from the prison, Myers entered Olivesburg General Store Thursday evening. There he used a telephone, telling the store’s staff that he needed to call for help because his car had died several miles away.
Standing at the counter, Myers noticed a print out with his mug shot sitting near the register. Despite attempting to hide the picture with change, another customer in the store recognized him.
Acting quickly, the man, wearing a striking flag shirt for Independence Day, tackled Myers, putting him in a headlock and forcing him face down to the floor.
One of the store’s employees described looking up from ice cream he was scooping at the time to see the flag-shirted man upon the other man at the counter, wondering in disbelief whether “anyone else [is] seeing what I’m seeing right now?”
The customer, Mark Cooper, had called police before making his decision, saying “I just walked back over there and threw him to the ground, didn’t give him a chance to get a gun.”
At 6-foot-4 and 320 pounds, the man was no match for Cooper. The video included below shows Cooper coming up behind Myers quickly and pinning him in a headlock. Cooper says Myers didn’t put up a fight and resigned to his fate.
After the escape inmate was tackled, police arrived and took the man back to prison to finish serving his sentence from 2010 when he was convicted of kidnap and rape, among other charges reports WBNS-TV.
Watch the dramatic video below of an average man stopping a dangerous escaped inmate. Regardless of his size Cooper was impressively swift and the quick tackle is worth several views:
