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A SWAT team was forced to demolish the passenger side of an 18-wheeler and drag out the “impaired” driver after a three-hour-long standoff on a Texas highway.
The driver continued to rev the truck’s engine and maintained a “glazed” look on his face long after officers disabled the tires. They eventually deployed smoke, gas and other non-lethal tactics to entice the driver to exit the vehicle.
Footage shows investigators siccing their K9s on the unidentified man through the destroyed door before yanking him out of the rig and placing him in handcuffs shortly before 4 p.m. — only to find the cargo car he was protecting was completely empty.
“We still don’t know why he was acting in the erratic manner that he was,” Harris County Sheriff Ed Gonzalez told reporters.
“There does appear to be some heavy impairment … Just from the naked eye, that’s what it appears to be.”
The bizarre standoff kicked off at 1 p.m. when police found the 18-wheeler parked in the middle of the outbound lanes of East Freeway in Houston.
The driver took off as soon as he noticed the patrol car turn on its overhead lights, and almost instantly engaged in “evasive action,” including swerving in and out of multiple lanes, Gonzalez said.
Deputies deployed tire spikes, taking out multiple tires, but the driver continued crawling down the highway for several more minutes until the driver’s cabin collapsed onto the pavement.
Officers tried speaking with the man in Spanish and English, but he ignored every attempt at communication, said police.
“He appeared to be behind the wheel in like in a glaze, just revving the truck like as if he was driving,” Gonzalez said. “And we were concerned that he would perhaps eventually go forward and continue to wreak more havoc or put more people at risk.”
After tear gas also proved futile, a SWAT team used a Rook, a bulldozer-like vehicle modified for tactical uses, to rip open the cabin doors and send in a K9 — but the man still didn’t budge.
Eventually, officers went inside, physically pulled the man out and placed him under arrest.
No weapons were found in the car and the cargo was empty. His identification and charges were still pending Wednesday night, according to Gonzalez.
Other details — including whether the truck was stolen and what the man’s plan was — are not yet clear.
The incident caused traffic to be blocked in both directions of the highway, causing a back-up that lasted for miles and lasted several hours.
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