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Just after midnight earlier this month, a shirtless man sprinted across the street in front of Anthony Baines’ car in Houston. Two police officers were hot on his heels. Baines, an Uber driver on his way to pick up his next passenger, barely knew what was happening when one of the cops opened his door and jumped in. “Hey, give me a ride over there, please,” the officer said, according to dashcam footage shared on Houston 2 News. “Go, go that way… go go go go go!”
Baines, a retired Army sergeant, followed the command. He drove a short distance, picked up a second officer and cruised the neighborhood while the two cops used his Uber as a makeshift patrol car. When they finally spotted the suspect again, both officers bailed out mid-drive to chase him on foot, leaving Baines alone in his car to process what had just happened. “What the f—?!” he said.
Police never caught the guy, who they say had threatened a woman and her two kids before fleeing an apartment. Baines says he was just running on adrenaline. “This was my action hero moment,” he told .
He didn’t actually have to save the day. Houston police union president Doug Griffith confirmed civilians can say no. “There’s nothing that forces or compels anyone to help out,” he said. Baines just didn’t know that on the fateful night.