VIDEO has been released of a 2012 chase which resulted in a motorcyclist being shot and then kicked off his bike – earning the police officer three days off without pay.
The story started just after midnight two days before Christmas 2012, when Steven Gaydos opted to run a red light on his GSX-R750. It was a bad move, since he was spotted by trooper Abraham Martinez, who set off in pursuit.
Gaydos’ second mistake was to think he could outrun the patrol car, which he led on a 38-mile chase at up to 130mph. “I took off, thinking I could easily lose him,” he said later. It turned out that he couldn’t and eventually Martinez shot at his back tyre – missing and instead hitting him in the leg, which finally encouraged Gaydos to give up. However, the video shows that even as he was trying to put the side stand down (and struggling, as you might with a bullet in your right thigh), Martinez launched a ninja-style flying kick that took him and the bike to the ground.
It’s taken years of investigations to establish whether or not the police action was heavy handed, eventually resulting in Martinez’s brief unpaid vacation last year and the video being released now.
It looks like nobody was being terribly sensible that night.
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