THANK YOU LARGO POLICE DEPARTMENT

I want to thank the fine folks of the Largo Police Department :cop: . A month ago, I was driving my civilian vehicle northbound on Belcher Rd, north of 142nd Avenue, when a gold Dodge Intrepid, occupied by a black male :evil: , came within an inch of sideswiping my vehicle. I drive a 2007 Ford Expedition so as you know it sits up higher off the ground. I followed the driver to East Bay and Belcher into the westbound turnlanes and noticed an open container in his vehicle. I followed to the vehicle westbound on East Bay past Fulton when the driver had to slam on his brakes three times to avoid a rear end collision with the cars in front of him. I had dialed 911 by that time and was patched over to Largo PD's comm center and had an OUTSTANDING dispatcher on the line that could have simply put out an ATL (Attempt to Locate) for the driver, but instead, he stayed on the line with me, getting cross streets and updates on the drivers status. We came to the intersection of Missouri and East Bay and the driver rear ended another car, albeit mildly, but nonetheless, he ran from the scene in his car. I kept the dispatcher notified of our location until I had seen a slicktop headed south on Missouri, do a U-turn in the Wendys parking lot and start heading northbound. Up from behind me, I see a marked unit and as he passes me by, he paces the unit for about a mile, observing his moves, when the marked unit goes x50(traffic stop). The driver continues for another half mile before pulling into a parking lot next to a drive thru liqour store, just south of Lakeview. The two officers who stopped happened to be the Deputy Chief in his unmarked cruiser, which impressed me to the utmost and another awesome officer who was extremely professional with the suspect and with me, as a citizen, not knowing that I work for Law Enforcement daily. They waited until a DUI day car arrived and gave the suspect a FST and the suspect failed. I had then found out that this suspect was going to "Casa de Coats" (Pinellas County Jail) on his fourth DUI charge and soon to be conviction. He was also driving on a BPO drivers license (Business Purposes Only) and his DL was suspended indefinately, with the exception of the BPO. The Deputy Chief took my statement and the marked cruiser officer swore me to tell the truth on my statement and I stood by and watched as the suspect was arrested and taken to jail. I had been hit head on by a drunk driver 14 years ago on Memorial Causeway leading out to Clearwater Beach, before the new bridge was there. this time the drawbridge was up and the driver and 8 partiers had left Jamminz on Clearwater Beach but didnt want to wait for the drawbridge and subsequently crossed through the grass median and hit me head-on, sending me into a palm tree and it took Clearwater Fire, almost 40 minutes to cut me out of the car. The ironic part to my accident is, I worked as a paramedic with SunStar back then, and I was at an accident a year prior, when a drunk driver killed an innocent driver, and it wasnt 30 seconds later that I told my girlfriend that story, that we were hit by that drunk driver. To this day, I cana no longer work as a paramedic, ending my lifelong dream of being a paramedic and I wear a Morphine pump that is implanted under my skin, because of the pain I live with daily. I have ZERO tolerance for drunk drivers and will call it in to anyone, anytime I see one. So again, fro the bottom of my heart, I say THANK YOU to the Deputy Chief and his other officer that day for taking another maggot off of the streets of Pinellas County! :cop: :cop: :cop: :cop: :cop: :cop: