Houston Uber driver caught in wild police chase as officers seen on dashcam video hitching a ride in his car
A Houston Uber driver was caught "off guard" but kept his cool when two police officers jumped into his vehicle and directed him to chase a suspect fleeing on foot, wild dashcam video shows.
Anthony Baines said he was driving for Uber at about 12:20 a.m. Aug. 8 in a Houston Heights neighborhood, when a shirtless man ran across the street in front of his vehicle with two Houston Police Department officers close behind, according to Storyful.
The video shows Baines getting waved down by an officer and stopping as she approaches and hops into the front passenger seat.
"Hey, give me a ride over there please," the officer says in the video. "Go, go that way … go, go, go, go, go!"
Baines can be heard asking which way he should drive as officers point him in the direction of the suspect. After driving a short distance, the officer signals for her partner, who's carrying a flashlight, to get in the vehicle, too, and opens the car door and jumps into the backseat.
The officers rode with Baines for several minutes while searching the area before one of them appeared to spot the suspect. Both officers jump out of the Uber and resume their pursuit on foot.
"What the f---?!" Baines is heard saying as the officers dart from his car.
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"It caught me completely off guard," Baines told Storyful. "I’ve never had anything like that happen driving. I was surprised but just did what the officer asked in the moment."
Houston police confirmed the authenticity of the video and the incident to KPRC 2, which reported officers had been responding to a terroristic threat call involving allegations that the suspect threatened to shoot a woman and her children after becoming upset over a belief that someone had stolen from him.
Police said officers tried to detain the man as he left an apartment, but he refused to cooperate and ran away. An officer asked the driver to take them around the block to the apartment complex, where the officers returned to their own vehicle, according to KPRC.
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Despite the unusual assistance, police did not locate the suspect. His identity has not been released, and the investigation remains ongoing.
Baines later appeared to confirm in a social media post that he was the Uber driver behind the dashcam footage.
"Yep, that was me," he wrote. "The Uber driver whose dashcam caught two HPD officers jumping in my car to chase a suspect."
Baines described himself as an Army veteran, husband and father of two who began driving Uber so he and his wife could save for their first home.
Fox News Digital has reached out to HPD and Uber for comment.