Heroic Police Officer Uses Bare Hands To Stop Runaway SUV

By Amanda Thomason December 26, 2019 at 12:21pm

Headphones are a wonderfully useful thing: They can give you a sense of escape as they surround you with music, which is great when you’re trying to perform a variety of tasks that require focus and isolation.

They’ve proven dangerous in many situations for the same reasons, though the danger is in user error. Many authorities urge runners not to use headphones in both ears because it seriously impairs their ability to keep aware of their surroundings.

That’s probably one of the more common dangers of headphone use, but on Monday a new dangerous scenario presented itself. As a pack of headphone-wearing students walked alongside a street in Bridgeport, Connecticut, they couldn’t hear a police officer screaming at them as a driverless car steadily headed right for them.

“Now we go through a lot of scenarios, but that’s not a scenario they teach us in the Academy,” Officer Carlos Carmo Jr. said, according to WABC-TV in New York. “That’s just one of those things where your instinct kicks in and you basically do what you gotta do to keep these kids safe.”

Thank you Officer Carlos Carmo Jr. for your quick thinking!#Bridgeport #RunawayCar #HeroicAct #Hero #BPTFinest #BPTProud https://t.co/b7PrFegnDx

— Bridgeport Police (@bptpolice) December 23, 2019

The officer said he first noticed something was wrong when a black SUV rolled past him and the two passengers were “going crazy,” according to a video posted on the Bridgeport Police’s Twitter feed.

Looking over, he saw there was no driver in the car. According to the Bridgeport police video, apparently the car had been placed in park, facing downhill, when it slipped into neutral and began cruising along in the far right traffic lane near Boston Avenue.

When Carmo realized what was happening, he began chasing after the runaway car on foot and screaming at a group of students whom the car seemed to be heading straight for.

Today, Chief Perez and Assistant Chief Rebeca Garcia joined Mayor Joe Ganim to acknowledge Bridgeport Police Officer Carlos Carmo Jr. who stopped an SUV from rolling downhill on Boston Avenue during school dismissal. #HeroicAct #herocop #BPTFinest pic.twitter.com/zbfdhbhpKP

— Bridgeport Police (@bptpolice) December 23, 2019

“The kids actually, they basically they all had headphones on, and I was screaming at them,” Carmo said. “They basically didn’t even didn’t even hear me, and I only think they knew what was going when it was over.”

Reaching the car, he held on to the right rear door frame, using his body strength to slow the drifting vehicle.

“My adrenaline basically kicked in at that point,” Carmo explained. “I used my strength while dragging my feet along the ground, pavement, before the SUV could collide with anyone or anything.”

“I was just thinking in my mind to say, ‘I got to find a way to stop this.'”

“On December 16th at approximately 1430hrs, Bridgeport School Resource Officer Carlos Carmo Jr. performed a heroic act by stopping an SUV that was rolling downhill on Boston Avenue with two individuals, one in the passenger seat and one on the back seat, but no driver,” the Bridgeport police Twitter account shared on Monday.

Thanks to this officer’s quick thinking and observant watch, no one was harmed. Many people didn’t seem to notice the car moving along in the lane, heading for the students, was actually a runaway car, and this Christmas could have turned out very differently for several families if he hadn’t sprinted after the car.

Of course, Carmo insists he’s no hero, but there are plenty of people who think otherwise and are incredibly grateful that he was able to act as he did.

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