San Jose Police Chief Tackles Murder Suspect Escaping From Station
SAN JOSE (CBS SF) -- San Jose's police chief tackled a murder suspect attempting to make a bold escape Monday.
26-year-old San Jose man Hector Flores Arias tried to escape a police station while his hands were still in cuffs. Police say Arias managed to slip out of the station through the holding cell door, which should lock automatically.
Arias flipped his handcuffs around from behind before scaling a tall barbed wire fence. But he ran into a problem in the parking lot when Chief Larry Esquivel spotted him.
A department spokesman says Esquivel immediately saw that something wasn't right when he pulled in past the gates for work Monday morning. He hopped out of his car and tackled the suspect who was running toward him.
Arias managed to get away for a moment, and there was a brief chase, but the chief eventually took him down. He was left with a torn shirt, and a few scrapes.
Arias was recently extradited to San Jose from Mexico, where police believe he was hiding out. He is a suspect in the 2009 shooting death of a San Jose man.
The department says right now it appears that a malfunction with its security system or some kind of equipment problem led to the breach, not human error.
