Bad Places to Hide: Atlantic Ocean

Sep 05, 2017 05:30 am | Kevin

Take everything I’ve said before about trying to hide in or escape across bodies of water (see, e.g., “Pond Ruins Yet Another Getaway” (May 24, 2016), “Police Wait Patiently for Man in Pond to Surrender” (July 24, 2014); and “Sinking Pedal Boat Ends Ridiculous Escape Attempt” (Jan. 28, 2010)), multiply it by several orders of magnitude, and apply it to this case, in which the body of water was the Atlantic Ocean.

Surf City, North Carolina, is on the western shore of that ocean, about 20 miles northeast of Wilmington. According to the Port City Daily, police there made a traffic stop somewhere near the beach, and spotted “contraband” in the young man’s vehicle. They asked him to get out and began to interrogate him. But shortly thereafter, he decided it might be better to flee, so he turned and ran.

Into the ocean.

Fleeing like this is never a great idea for a variety of reasons, and if they’ve got your car and your license plate, etc., you probably won’t be that difficult to track down anyway. But people in these situations often aren’t thinking clearly. Which was probably the case here, or else he might have considered, let’s say, the likelihood that police officers in Surf City will be equipped with boats. But he didn’t consider that. He just started swimming.

And kept swimming.