Lead photo: Southbound Interstate 75 in Brandon, Hillsborough County, Florida. Photo by Dough4872 via Wikimedia Commons, public domain.
Hillsborough County sheriff’s deputies stopped Darius Ford, 28, on northbound Interstate 75 near East Fowler Avenue in Tampa, Florida, at 12:41 p.m. on Monday, Sept. 28, by dropping a Grappler net from the front of a patrol car and letting it wind around his rear tire, the sheriff’s office said in a Facebook post that included the video. The agency called Ford a wanted felony suspect. He was booked on 16 felony charges, and according to the full charge list reported by Tampa station WTSP, not one of them is fleeing or eluding.
The Grappler is sold as a way to end police chases. On I-75 on Sept. 28, the sheriff’s office used it on a car whose driver, by the agency’s own account and charge list, has not been accused of fleeing. Most of what he is charged with comes from Florida’s sex offender registration law, which treats a registrant’s cars and driver license the way it treats a home address, and two of the counts involve vehicles he owned.
What the sheriff’s I-75 video shows
The clip the Hillsborough County Sheriff’s Office posted runs about a minute. It opens with footage from the agency’s aircraft over the interstate, then cuts to a patrol car’s dashcam directly behind a dark sedan that, on video, looks like an older Dodge Charger. Traffic ahead of the sedan is slowing. The patrol car closes to a few feet off its rear bumper, and moments later white smoke pours off the sedan’s right rear tire as the tether wraps it. The car rolls to a stop on the shoulder…