Dramatic car chase through Tarrant County

I’m only writing about this in jest because no one was injured, but last night’s car chase through Tarrant County was something straight out of The Dukes of Hazzard.

This guy was good, dodging spike strips and maneuvering in and around a Haltom City neighborhood for nearly an hour.

I have to admit, I got trapped in local television’s web of sensationalism last night. Channel 5 was the first to report on the chase, a full 15 or 20 minutes before anybody else had anything. I was flipping back and forth through the big four seeing who had the best heli-cam angles, etc. Channel 8 picked up on it second, followed by Channels 11 and 4, respectively.

What surprised me about the whole ordeal was the varying depictions of the incident as more channels picked up the story. Depending on which channel you were watching the driver wasmaybe a male, maybe not. He was white, or maybe Hispanic, not sure. Lots of misinformation. I guess it’s all a great reason to tune in at 10. [Which I did.]

After the suspect, Martin Beltran, got out of his car and ran into the home where he was later apprehended, police swarmed on the area searching for the man. Officers initially went into the house looking for home, and came out with a woman. Then they started searching the nearby area, even bringing in a canine unit.

You’ve gotta give Beltran some credit, he’s real good at hide and seek. Turns out he was hiding underneath the home.

As I said before, it’s very fortunate no one was hurt in this incident, but man, it was exciting.