This past Sunday one of my clients had a TV commercial shoot. We were downtown Houston in front of the Civil Courthouse building. The shot we were getting was of the candidate with a couple of police officers in the background in front of their police vehicle. Now because there is a policy in most police departments in Harris County that the officers may not participate in political advertisements, we got constable deputies from a neighboring county. They were reserves and off duty (obviously) at the time. They came in their full get-up though and arrived in a very cool police, tricked-out Tahoe.
So the scene set up, again, was the candidate right in front of the camera with the officers just chatting in the background next to their vehicle.
Just as we started another take of this particular script, that included information about prosecuting criminals, we heard a commotion a few blocks away. Luckily it did not get into the audio in our shot, so we kept rolling.
Within a few minutes we heard an HPD officer screaming "Get on the ground, hands in the air, get on the *$%n ground!!"
And before I could even process what was happening the two off duty officers had drawn their guns and tackled to the ground the suspect that was running straight toward our direction.
Apparently the commotion mention previously a few blocks away was the beginning of a foot chase between a man who had stolen a lady's purse, forcibly, and then run from the cops. When they got him on the ground they found narcotics, and after running his name they found that he is already a convicted felon.
It was really scary but also incredible to see how quickly those off duty officers sprang into action.
And the coolest part is that we think we got most of it on film. At the very least we got the officers going from zero to full blast in the blink of an eye.
It was a terrifying moment in which I came away very impressed with the sheer fearlessness of our men in uniform.
Happy Wednesday!
xoxo Sara Marie
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