Why You Shouldn’t Run From The Police

 Posted on July 23, 2020 in Criminal Defense

So running from the police in Texas is called "Evading Arrest," and you can absolutely get arrested for it. If an officer is attempting to lawfully detain or arrest you and you take off you can be subject to this crime. By way of a quick example, we sometimes see this charge when people are being pulled over for a minor traffic violation. Instead of pulling over they decide to gun it or take off. Now in addition to what would otherwise be a minor traffic violation, you'll pick up an evading arrest charge.

How much trouble can I get into if I run from the Police?

So it depends. If you run on foot, that's generally a misdemeanor charge. However, if you run in a vehicle or a car, you can pick up a felony charge. If you run on foot and then you decide to jump into a vehicle, you'll pick up a felony charge. Worst thing that can possibly happen is during the chase, whether on foot or whether in a vehicle, the officer hurts himself. We've definitely seen situations where an officer is chasing down an individual, sprains his ankle or hurts himself on a chain-link fence, all of a sudden you have a very serious felony charge on your hands.

If I feel like running what should I do?

Honestly -- don't run. You're just gonna make everything worse in the end. Look, if you're getting arrested for something, give us a call, we can take care of this for you and you're going to make our job a lot easier if we can tell the judge, tell the prosecutor that you're respectful, you listen to commands, and didn’t give the officer any trouble. It's much much more difficult when the officer says someone was angry, they were rude, they were disrespectful and even worse -- they ran.