"It will if you hit it hard enough!"

"It will if you hit it hard enough!"

It had been snowing all day and all night, in all we had gotten several inches, and the stuff was still falling. The roads hadn't been plowed and it was hard to tell where the pavement was. We were riding two to a car that night for safety reasons, it's hard to get to someone who needs help in inclimate weather. At shift change the Lt. had told my partner and I about a man who had made threats to his girlfriend and told her he was coming to take her car. We looked this guy up in the system and found he had warrants outstanding for assault on a female. We took the warrants and left the office to patrol our assigned area.
I remember how bright out it was with the moon reflecting off the snow, it was almost like mid morning. My partner and I checked a few buildings and rode through the crack-hood to see if there was anyone there we could lock up, but everything was dead. My partner T. asked if I wanted to go and check on that warrant and I said sure. We slowly meandered our way through the snow and finally arrived at the address this guy was supposed to be going to. The driveway was exceptionally long and we saw a black truck leaving the trailer and heading towards us. We thought it might be our man so we waited for it to get to the end of the driveway. The truck pulled up and it turned out not to be the guy we were looking for, but after talking to him for a moment he told us he had just dropped the guy off at the trailer. We let him leave and the car that was supposed to be stolen by our wanted fellow started up and headed our way. As the car approached I recognized him as the man we were looking for. I turned on the blue lights and got out of the car. The other car stopped and the man rolled down his window. I told him to turn the car off and get out, that he was under arrest. "I can't do that " he said matter of factly as he rolled the window back up. I started towards him eager to yank him out of the car, when his back tires began to spin crazily in the snow as he laid down on the gas pedal. The car was headed straight towards me. I was in a bad position, he was about to crush me between the two cars.
I began to run to the front of my car and managed to make it to the front quarter panel and dive to the side just before he hit me. As he passed the side view mirror of his car hit me in the elbow, his car was about to pin me in, so I punched out the drivers side window of his car, knowing that when the glass shattered he would jerk the wheel in the other direction, and steer away from me.
I felt no pain as my hand hit his glass and broke through, coming within inches of his face. He continued to drive wildly and nearly wrecked as he spun onto the snow covered road. I looked over at T. and he just looked at me in amazement and said "man, I didn't know a car window would shatter like that." "It will if you hit it hard enough" I replied.
I threw T. the keys and said "let's get this guy." As I was going to the passenger side I noticed that my hand felt like it was soaking wet and sticky. I looked down and saw that my hand had been cut pretty badly. I remember seeing my blood in the snow at my feet and being strangely fascinated by the stark contrast of my blood on the pristine white of the snow. I got in the car and wrapped my hand in a sock hat, to keep any more blood from getting on the interior of the car. I don't know how much good that did as the door was already covered with my blood. T. spun the car around and began to chase the offender. The Lt. called us on the radio and told us to stop the prusuit due to the weather. I called him on the phone and told him what happened and that we were going to see if the guy didn't crash somewhere down the road. We didn't see him anywhere which amazed me, because the guy was driving so badly when he fled the scene. T. asked me if I wanted to go to the hospital and I told him yeah, but I wanted to take out warrants on the jerk first for trying to run me down with his car. Another guy from the shift got a lead on where the maniac had fled to, a house in the next county over. We called that jurisdiction and they had no trouble identifying either him or the vehicle.
I went to the hospital and recieved several stitches, which I ended up taking out myself a couple of weeks later. When the case went to court I remember testifying and the whole time this cat was sitting next to his lawyer just smiling at me saying he was going to get away with it. His smile turned into a frown when he was convicted and sent to prison for a term of several years. I remember the D.A. in this case asked me about letting the guy plea to a lesser offense, but I stuck to my guns and we convicted him of the felony. I don't always win, but it is sweet when I do.