A routine traffic stop on the Gulf Coast turned into a beach pursuit when a Tallahassee driver decided a sand volleyball court was a better escape route than the open road.
It started simply enough: a Waveland, Mississippi police officer was eastbound on South Beach Boulevard on Tuesday evening when he spotted a Jeep Gladiator heading the opposite direction at a speed his radar confirmed to be 44 mph in what is presumably a lower-posted zone. The officer turned around to initiate a stop. What followed was anything but routine. Instead of pulling over, 41-year-old Harley Leamon of Tallahassee, Florida, made a decision that only makes sense if you have something very serious to hide, or very poor judgment, or quite possibly both.
Leamon cranked the wheel, jumped the curb onto a pedestrian walking and biking path, and accelerated to approximately 80 mph. To put that in perspective, that is nearly double highway-cruising speed on a surface designed for joggers and cyclists. He then drove the Gladiator directly onto the beach sand near Garfield Ladner Memorial Pier, traveling several hundred feet past the volleyball courts before the truck did what physics promised it would: it got stuck. Sand, it turns out, is not a viable getaway surface, regardless of what the truck’s marketing materials might suggest…