Naked Man In Handcuffs Jumps In Water, Police In Rowboat Chase Him Down

A naked man in Sweden led police on one of the weirder slow-speed chases you’ll ever hear about when he jumped into a pond in handcuffs as cops paddled after him in a rowboat. The bizarre incident took place at a public swimming area in a nature reserve in the city of Eskilstuna in the eastern part of the country.

The incident may have quickly devolved into absurdity, but the way it started was not funny at all. Sometime soon after 6 pm local time, a man who was later identified as an employee of the city arrived at the Sjkulsta swimming area, driving a city-owed car — a car which, it quickly became clear, he was not authorized to be driving.

He stripped naked and attempted to sexually assault a woman at the swimming pond, right in front of the woman’s husband and 3-year-old son. When the woman’s husband tried to stop the crazed attacker, the naked man punched and kicked him.

According to one report, five onlookers tried to stop the attack, but were not able to subdue the naked 26-year-old man, who police believe to have been under the influence of some kind of drugs. One onlooker who tried to help suffered a torn muscle in his leg and was hospitalized.

Finally, the Good Samaritans got the man under control and held him down until police got to the scene. But as soon as the cops put him in handcuffs, the naked man slithered out of their grasp and made a break for it.

The naked man jumped into the water and somehow managed to swim away, even though his hands were still cuffed. While one officer dove in after him and tried to catch up to the man by swimming, a second quick-thinking officer spotted a rowboat and started paddling.

“A police officer jumped in the water with a buoy, and another unit jumped into a row boat,” said Janne Karlsson, a local police officer.

The not-so-thrilling chase went on for several minutes before the paddling policeman caught up to the naked man and took him into custody once and for all.

“It is extremely regrettable, it is a terrible event, mainly for the family who is suffering, a human resources manager at the city told Sweden’s publicly-funded Sveriges Radio.

The HR official, whose name was not given, added that city would review its hiring practices after the naked man incident.

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