At these high rates of speeds, it could go completely sideways.
This is, by far, the most dangerous human
in our city,
and they need to be caught.
Sheriff's department! Come outside!
I was just working traffic.
Whenever I got a call from one of our undercover officers,
he needed assistance with individuals
coming to sell fentanyl.
He had set up the buy location at Dollar General.
Sergeant Lewis pulls up in his unmarked cruiser.
His target is Kayla Cervantes, a suspected drug dealer
who is already on the run for multiple felony warrants.
I wasn't there more than just a couple minutes.
A car pulled into that same parking lot.
Before officers can move in, Cervantes takes off.
Turning.
I tried to stop her right away.
But it was clear she was not going to stop.
Cervantes swerves into oncoming traffic
and narrowly misses another pickup.
She just went through the red light.
The car didn't see her coming, didn't see me coming,
and it was really close to being a crash right there.
There is a lot of adrenaline that's going,
trying to control that.
Things are happening so fast.
I was just trying to keep up with her
without causing an accident.
Sergeant Lewis knows the only way
he can stop the fleeing truck
is by carrying out a TVI,
or Tactical Vehicle Intervention.
You will pull up to one side or the other,
hit on the side of the rear of the vehicle,
and it just causes it to lose traction and spin out.
The vehicle I was driving, because it's an unmarked car,
did not have a crash bar on the front of it,
so I couldn't perform the TVI
without seriously damaging my car.
I was essentially following the same path
that Sergeant Lewis was.
Sergeant Darwent is nearby
in a marked unit that has a push bar.
Sergeant Lewis, he is what I consider to be
probably the best driver in the police department.
He's trained me on how to conduct a TVI.
Sergeant Darwent is trying to catch up to the pursuit.
Until then,
Sergeant Lewis is on his own.
There's a lot of dangers in a parking lot.
The chances of having a crash or running over someone, goes way up.
It's a relief that we made it through the parking lot
without hitting anyone or anything.
Out to the service road.
There he comes.
Sergeant Darwent catches up
and takes the lead in the pursuit.
My job was to put an end to the pursuit.
As soon as he got behind her,
she was going fairly straight.
His vehicle was in a perfect position to do the TVI.
The suspect rapidly accelerates to 80 miles an hour.
The pressure I felt in the moment was immense.
Up to this point in my career, I hadn't been involved
in many high speed pursuits.
This would be the first time performing a TVI.
There's a massive adrenaline dump.
You're a little nervous. You're scared.
You're not sure what's going to happen.
I used my push bar to make contact with her bumper.
The moment I did that, she started to do
defensive maneuvers against my attempts,
leaving me unable to conduct the TVI
without putting the public in danger.
It felt like I was on an F1 track.
Even the slightest little nudge on the steering wheel felt like
I was crossing three lanes of traffic.
Performing the TVI at these high rates of speeds is...
kind of anyone's guess.
It could turn out as well as you want it to be,
and it could also go completely sideways.
She had done this in the past.
She'd eluded officers in the past,
and until she was stopped and caught,
she wasn't going to stop selling the drug.
She increased her speed,
was driving a little more reckless,
swerving in and out of vehicles.
With these innocent people
just going about their business,
I did not feel safe doing another TVI.
Speeds reached in excess of 90-plus miles an hour.
In those moments, when things are tense,
the adrenaline is flowing.
You have to focus on your breathing.
It's what we like to call combat breathing,
which are long, deep inhales, and long, deep exhales.
And by doing that,
you're allowing your heart rate to slow down.
And then it was, just like, the Red Sea had parted.
All of a sudden, there was no more traffic around,
it was almost like God had come down and said,
"OK, now's the time, end it."
Ow, ow, ow!
When Kayla's truck landed on all fours,
I felt a huge sigh of relief.
But at the same time, I knew that my job wasn't done.
Seeing the significance,
the severity of what had just happened,
in our minds, there was no way
that she wasn't seriously hurt.
Even though she ran from us, even though she fled,
she put all these people in danger...
she's still a human being.
Other than a headache,
she pretty much had no injuries.
It was shocking that no one really was seriously injured,
including herself.
The officers found fentanyl on her person
that she was going to sell to the undercover officer.
Cervantes is also found to be in possession
of both heroin and methamphetamines.
I mean, the goal is to disable the vehicle,
and it absolutely disabled the vehicle,
it ripped a wheel off the vehicle.
This was, by far, the most exciting
and most intense
police action I had ever been involved in.
Having Sergeant Lewis there, the man that I look up to,
tell me, "Good job,"
give me an "Attaboy," was an awesome feeling.
Coming...
I thought it was great. I told him it was great.
I was very proud of him.
Kayla Cervantes is charged with multiple offenses,
including endangering others while eluding the police
and possession of illegal drugs with intent to sell.
She is sentenced to 15 years in prison,
plus 10 years of probation.
A moment like that with a successful TVI,
where everyone gets to walk away relatively unscathed is
something I'll never forget.
On top of that, being able to take a dangerous drug dealer
off the street was just another plus.
On the south side of Kalamazoo City,
is La Tienda Guatemalteca Convenience Store.
Officer Thomas is less than two miles away.
The first information I'd heard come across the radio
was that there had been an armed robbery
that was in progress at a grocery store off
of Burdick Street,
and that there was a high possibility
that there were persons inside who had been shot.
His identity is concealed because of an ongoing
undercover investigation.
All right, we got to go to work.
As the store owner is pinned down,
fearing for his life,
the customer makes a daring escape.
As I'm cresting the hill right by the cemetery,
a silver Chevy SUV comes past me at a high rate of speed.
Two and two clicked, This is probably the suspect.
This is pretty lucky. He just passed me.
OK, let's go.
Adrenaline's flowing.
If he's willing to shoot other people in the store,
obviously he's willing to shoot
at a police officer in a cruiser.
These are all things that kind of weigh on your mind.
Dispatch puts out a call for backup.
Officer Bradley Spieldenner is close by.
As soon as that dispatch comes out,
I start going to that area
in hopes to find the suspect fleeing the scene.
The nature of this call is much more severe than probably
90% of what we ever deal with.
This is, by far, the most dangerous human
in our city, and they need to be caught.
Officer Thomas spots the vehicle abandoned
and the suspect fleeing on foot into an apartment complex.
Shots fired.
After the first round impacted the window, and it exploded,
obviously that was pretty shocking to the system
because glass is flying everywhere inside the car.
A matter of a split second, everything inside my cruiser is
just going into chaos.
I know that I'm still a present target for the suspect.
I have to get myself and my vehicle behind cover,
retrieve my patrol rifle so that I can level
the playing field with the suspect.
The problem was he's 150 to 180 yards away from me.
We're in a heavily populated apartment complex.
There's people out and about in the parking lot.
If I were to attempt to fire upon the suspect,
and if I were to miss, somebody could have hurt or injured.
I can hear sirens coming in every single direction.
It's a great sound to hear
sirens coming towards you very fast.
Once we have two or three people,
we're able to move forward.
We have hundreds of people that are out and about.
There's children, there's families that live
in this complex.
He's already shot at multiple people inside the store.
He shot at me.
We have to go and look for the suspect
as fast as humanly possible.
I was assigned essentially to a team of officers
that we were going to start providing cover, concealment,
and searching throughout this complex
of where this person was last seen.
We have received some telephone notification
that the suspect had maybe gone by one of these buildings.
Is he concealed inside an apartment?
Does he know somebody in the complex?
I found this mechanic's blue coveralls.
When I went through the pockets of the coveralls,
I found a garage door opener.
We now have a tangible piece of evidence
that we can link to a suspect.
Here's what we need.
With no further sightings of the suspect,
officers take a moment to regroup.
A couple people asked me, like, "Hey, are you OK?"
"What's going on? You just got shot at?"
Well, no.
I mean, a bullet actually went pretty close
to where my head was located at in the cruiser.
I just chalked up, like, "Hey, it just wasn't my day to go."
The officers set up a perimeter
and search for hours.
But there's no sign of the suspect
in the apartment complex.
A few of us officers were searching through these bushes,
and below and behold, here's the rifle that was used
in the incident.
So at this point, we know that he has escaped.
We weren't able to catch him.
But now that we have this rifle,
that gives us a lot of leads that we can follow.
Three days after the initial search is called off,
detectives trace the gun to a local resident.
The gun that was used is a very dangerous weapon.
It was an assault rifle, an AR15.
It can kill people,
but also, it can go through an officer's vest.
Howdy.
We don't know for sure
if they're involved in the shooting or not,
but that's what we're going to go find out.
He was being evasive,
he was trying to shield the person
who he gave the gun to.
He was worrying about himself getting in trouble
for giving the gun to someone.
After dancing around the truth,
finally this person tells us
who he gave the gun to.
We have an address.
We have a description of the house.
And we have to see if the name Juan comes back to it.
And sure enough, Juan Alvarado Lopez does live
at this address.
A swat team is closing in to arrest the suspect.
- Yep. - Yep.
The decision was made that we're going
to contain the house with a perimeter.
You're dealing with someone that's already showing
a propensity for violence
and showing that they're willing to use that violence.
Oh, it's OK boy.
If he's there, he knows you're there.
So now it just turns into methodically and slowly moving
through this house and trying to clear as much of it as
you can before you even enter into a room.
I ended up getting to the suspect's house
as the SWAT team is there.
They go in and they tell us, "Hey, he's not in here."
Yeah, the family was at the house
when the officer showed up,
and they all came out willingly
and talked to other detectives.
And they were cooperative.
They explained, "Yes, Juan has stayed here in the past.
Will show up on occasion. Will use the garage."
Detectives test the garage door opener
found in the suspect's coveralls at the scene.
They confirm it works for the family's garage,
but there's no indication of Alvarado Lopez's
current location.
But it was also shared with us by the ex-partner
that they were no longer together in a relationship,
that they were having issues with him,
and he wasn't acting as himself lately.
While we're talking to the family,
we do learn that he's called from a new number.
Police trace the call.
As they head to the new address,
an undercover officer drives past the house
to see if Alvarado Lopez is there.
I drove up, I saw the suspect, Juan Lopez.
He was just there in the yard.
I was not expecting that.
It looked like he was working on a vehicle.
There's a heightened awareness.
He's already shot at an officer.
We used Officer Thomas' handcuffs.
There was a bit of poetic justice
in using the handcuffs from the officer
that was shot at.
One of the guys went and found his handcuffs in his locker
and brought them with us to the arrest.
So to put Officer Thomas' handcuffs on him,
it's almost kind of circular.
Juan Alvarado Lopez pleads guilty to 14 counts,
including assault with intent to rob while armed,
assault with intent to murder,
assaulting an officer,
and resisting and obstruction.
He's sentenced to 19 to 40 years behind bars.
The owner of the gun and his cousin were not investigated
any further.
When I had a chance to review my body cam,
Civilian said he's running through Candlewick.
He's armed with a shotgun. He's got a long gun.
He's got a rifle. Shots fired!
You realize that one of the bullets had hit the metal cage
between the prisoner compartment and the front part of the car,
and it bounced around on the cruiser
and had ricocheted off the steering wheel.
I got seriously lucky that I actually didn't get shot.
I didn't get wounded grievously.
Somebody was looking out for me that day.
St. Ann encourages their officers,
especially patrol officers, to be proactive
and conduct their own narcotics investigations.
So I got this tip. It was anonymous.
This person was dealing narcotics.
They can get it delivered.
And it was coming from this phone number.
They didn't have a name, but the street name was easy.
Officer Chronister comes to me.
I was his immediate supervisor.
He says, "Hey, I have this individual.
"We've made contact with him.
"He's willing to meet us with drugs,
"thinking we're a user.
And we want to set him up and get him into custody."
With the sting in motion,
the team moves into position.
We waited for that text confirmation to say,
"Hey, I'm here, come outside."
At that point, we have a marked unit drive down the road,
and then park the car behind,
and turn on the lights and sirens,
and conduct a suspicious vehicle stop.
I imagine he is probably panicking at this point.
He's here to deliver drugs, and the first person he sees
is a police officer approaching him.
All right.
He saw a bag of white powder in the lap,
which he suspected was narcotics.
So it's looking like this is our guy.
When he took off, put his car into drive
and put the pedal to the metal,
this is now a pursuit.
I see Sgt. Olsten with eyes on this vehicle
setting up for spikes.
And whenever the vehicle got close enough,
he timed it just perfect
and got a successful spike on the vehicle.
He's driving very panicked.
We don't know if he's also under the influence
of narcotics himself.
When I see EZ drive into the yard,
I can tell he's not used to driving on deflated tires.
If you turn right, you're going to be going right aggressively.
Turn left, you're going to be going left aggressively.
The star chase helps us track criminals that take off from us
without putting the public at risk.
I was able to get behind him and press the shoot button,
and then it stuck on him.
It is basically a sticky dart
that shoots out of the front bumper of our vehicles.
A transmitter on that will go straight to our dispatch
and let us know the exact GPS
of where that vehicle is traveling.
It's a very busy road that we're driving on.
It's right next to the airport.
There's tons of gas stations, tons of shops,
tons of stoplights, and he made no regard to stop
at any of the red lights that were there.
Every time he's going over one of those junctions,
it's terrifying. I'm afraid for other people.
He's going as fast as that little car to let him go
with flat tires.
He obviously doesn't want to go to jail,
and he's willing to do drastic things
to get away from us.
Start chase.
I definitely enjoy foot pursuits.
I'm in it to win it at this point.
There's no chance that I'm letting this guy go,
especially when I got after him on the vehicle this whole time.
There's no chance in hell I'm going to let him outrun me.
If you lose sight of them,
and then all of a sudden, you round a turn,
and they're standing there with a gun in your face,
we've had officers killed like that in this city.
Huh?
There's really not much that separates us.
I mean, I know, it's criminals and police,
and obviously that's the line, but it's the same time.
It's just like, hey, they're still human beings.
All right.
You have to be able to jump in and out of that role,
just like, "Hey, I'm a friendly community servant,
"but I'm also a punitive officer
"that's going to have to get hands on you
if I need to."
While the suspect is arrested and questioned,
police hunt for the missing firearm on the chase route.
We have an unknown gun
that's out here in this community,
in this apartment complex that has a lot of people in it.
We don't want somebody else picking up this gun.
Alright.
The firearm that we found was a Glock G17.
That's a semi-automatic handgun.
The weapon is able to end lives.
Anybody can walk right up to that thing and grab it.
It could be a five-year-old kid.
They can walk right up and grab that
and just never tell mommy and daddy,
and that's a significant risk to the public.
It's definitely a sense of relief to be able
to find that firearm.
Raphael Bell pleads guilty to resisting arrest
and is sentenced to five years probation.
Every single officer in our department is capable
of doing things like this.
They do it every day.
It's a very proactive police department.
People know, don't come to St. Ann to commit crimes,
'cause they're gonna chase you until the wheels fall off.