I’ve written before before how my family used the “Hop on / Hop Off” busses in England to get around the cities a lot. But one of our last times on those sightseeing busses turned out to be the most eventful.
As per usual, we got to the designated starting point early and claimed seats at the top. We had a wide choice of seats, the only other person on the top deck was two older women sitting together. I decided to sit halfway back, mainly because at this point in a 2 week trip I was annoyed with my family and was having a mini-fight with my sister. So I remember wanted to be further away from them. This ended up with me sitting near the older women. Our guide for this ride was a middle aged woman, and thanked us for our patience as they waited for other people to join the bus. I watched as the guide and the driver stood outside of the bus.
I was just staring forward, a bit tired of all the sightseeing we’d already done that day. Thats why the loud thump behind me startled me so much. I turned backward to see a tall, shaved head, skinny man standing among the back seats, and a mostly empty bottle of vodka clanged to the floor.
The old women also noticed the newcomer and whispered “Where’d he come from?” she said looking at me. My mind couldn’t comprehend how this man just appeared, as the only stairs to the top deck were closer to the front of the bus.  I slowly thought “Did he really just jump to the top or climbed up from the outside?”  He walked briskly to the front, where my parents noticed him. He smiled at them and they smiled back. Then without warning he grabbed the tour guide’s purse that she had left on her seat and bolted down the stairs. It happened so fast my parents didn’t realize what was happening, but I did.
From our vantage point on top of the bus, we could easily see him sprint past the driver and guide and down the street in front of us. I remember yelling meekly “Thief!” And that is when the guide noticed he was running away with her handbag. She and the driver started yelling and making a commotion as they ran down the street after him. Also from our vantage point we could see on the other side of the road from us was a police car, parked near the entrance to the mall. And the police were already outside of their vehicle when they heard the shouting.
I watched in slow-mo as a two police officers chased the skinny drunk thief. As he turned the corner of the street the police caught up to him and one flung themselves on top of the man, knocking him down. We all cheered! They caught the thief! They cuffed him and dragged him back to their waiting police car. The police then started taking witness statements of what had occurred. Â Another police car arrived to help take statements.
I didn’t mind the delay in our tour, as this was now so much more exciting! I waited for my turn to give my statement, as I was excited to tell the officer that the man had incredible jumped/climbed to the top of the double decker bus! But it was a very hot day in August, and even more so at the top of that bus. I looked over at the suspect in the police car. The car wasn’t running so they had rolled the back window partly down so the suspect would have some fresh air.
Or at least that is the good deed the police thought they were doing. Instead, the ingenious and determined thief was shimming his skinny self out the window. Hands still cuffed he then sprinted again past the police interviewing witnesses. Again in slow-mo I watched now four police officers attempt to chase down the man. He didn’t get as far, but was putting up one hell of a fight, punching officers with his handcuffed hands, kicking them with his long legs. At one point after knocking down some of the officers he made a break for it, and I watched as a rather fat police officer jump and body slam the man to the ground, and stayed on top of him until a police van (paddy wagon style) arrived. This time with bars on the windows.
At this point the officers didn’t care about witness statements anymore, and our poor guide was completely shaken up. We were told we could go. As the driver got on board, I looked over to see the skinny man had already fit his head and one shoulder through the vertical bars of the open ban windows as he attempted to make another escape. The guide saw this, and her voice broke a bit as she did her introduction, she was still in shock and adrenaline due to the situation. As we turned the corner we heard sirens and saw a armored police car on the way down the street we just came. The guide quipped that it maybe was for “Our Friend”. We all laughed at that. Still is one of the most bizarre things I’ve ever seen while traveling.
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