He was a standout linebacker in high school.
So it’s not totally surprising to anyone who knows San Jose Police Chief Larry Esquivel well that he was able to tackle a murder suspect to the ground Monday morning on the way to a staff meeting.
But in typical Esquivel fashion, he shrugged off the feat with a simple nod to good old fashioned police work.
" I was just doing my job, as any other officer would do in a similar situation," Esquivel said following the arrest.
But what happened, a story first reported by NBC Bay Area, was certainly far from ordinary.
Hector Flores Arias, 26, who police had been hunting since 2009 on murder charges, was finally arrested in a town near Guadalajara, Mexico on Sunday with help from police there and the FBI, according to Sgt. Enrique Garcia. In Mexico, Arias bit a couple of federal officers and tried to attack another while resisting his capture, Garcia said.
But Arias was eventually brought to San Jose, where he was waiting to be booked into the Santa Clara County Jail for the death of 22-year-old Juan Mendoza six years ago.
It was in this temporary holding cell that Arias was able to slip his handcuffs in front of him, escape through a door that should automatically lock when closed, and scale a fence into a police department parking lot, Garcia said.
Just then, Esquivel was pulling up in the parking lot about 8:45 a.m. and saw a man “running in full sprint, while handcuffed in front of his body,” Garcia said.
The chief got out of his car and ordered the man to stop.
He didn’t.
So Esquivel tried his first tackle, but failed.
Arias ran off again, toward the gate.
This time, the former Yerba Buena High School linebacker chased him for a block and tackled him – successfully – at W. Mission Street and Guadalupe Parkway bringing Arias into custody with the help of some other officers who came out to help.
“None of us knew,” Garcia said. “We were all in a staff meeting, saying, ‘Where is he?’ Then we heard what happened. The chief made an arrest? What?"
Esquivel was too busy Tuesday, with more meetings, to give interviews, Garcia said. But to his department, Esquivel downplayed his role, and brushed off his bruised elbow and torn khaki-department shirt from the tackle.
The chief has worked up the ranks, including stints as a detective and SWAT officer, so arresting someone with a little bit of scuffle isn’t the biggest deal.
“It’s what we do every day. We make arrests,” Garcia said. “It’s just another day at work.”
An internal audit is currently being conducted, Garcia added, to figure out how Arias got loose in the first place.
BREAKING: #SJPD Chief Esquivel tackles murder suspect in cuffs who escaped from #SJPD holding cell, scaled fence pic.twitter.com/rkUSd0RS25 — Damian Trujillo (@newsdamian) April 20, 2015
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Chief Esquivel: " I was just doing my job, as any other officer would do in a similar situation" pic.twitter.com/6bN5Mw703g — Damian Trujillo (@newsdamian) April 21, 2015
