Here's one of those times you actually wish you were aboard a harbor cruise: Orange County Sheriff's Harbor Patrol officers chased a guy who first piloted a dinghy Tuesday morning before he switched over to an electric Duffy boat.
One assumes the fellow next planned to commandeer a paddle board.
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Harbor Patrol got on the 8 a.m. case because a dinghy was reported stolen off a boat. The dinghy was later abandoned on Lido Island, where the Duffy was taken. After an extremely slow on-water chase that burned about an hour and involved the use of sheriff's boats and a helicopter, deputies managed to board the electric boat.
Speaking of electrifying, the man had to be taken down with a Taser gun because he would not cooperate, according to the sheriff's department, which reports beer and vodka were found on the boat.
The fellow, who had to be treated at Hoag Hospital for taser burns, had outstanding arrest warrants but was otherwise not identified by authorities.
Just think: If he'd made it from the Duffy to a salad bowl and spoon he could have rowed himself to a clean getaway.
Email: mc****@oc******.com. Twitter: @MatthewTCoker. Follow OC Weekly on Twitter @ocweekly or on Facebook!
OC Weekly Editor-in-Chief Matt Coker has been engaging, enraging and entertaining readers of newspapers, magazines and websites for decades. He spent the first 13 years of his career in journalism at daily newspapers before “graduating” to OC Weekly in 1995 as the alternative newsweekly’s first calendar editor.