Man loses ‘freeze tag’ match with police
By DON FLETCHER
News Staff Writer
An unidentified local man, the subject of several outstanding criminal warrants, apparently wanted so badly to share his inner childhood with Atmore and Poarch police that he followed bad advice and tried to make a game of his latest encounter with lawmen.
According to a posting on the Atmore Police Department Facebook page, the “misguided citizen” was himself misled by another individual into ignoring the blue lights of Atmore police and trying to reach the Poarch Band of Creek Indians Reservation, where he thought (also mistakenly) he would be protected from arrest by any U.S. law enforcement agency.
“Public Service Announcement for today: If you notice blue lights flashing in your rearview mirror you should pull over,” the APD February 17 Facebook post began. “Yesterday a misguided citizen who thought he was given good advice by another misguided citizen decided to drive even faster to make it onto the Poarch Creek Reservation (instead of pulling over).”
Once there, the misinformed man tried to convince police officers that he wasn’t breaking any laws, just playing a friendly child’s game.
“When he stopped on the reservation he jumped out and expressed to the officers that he was playing his own version of freeze tag and he wasn’t ‘it’,” the police post continued.
In the game of freeze tag, the player who is “it” tags another player and says, “freeze,” and the tagged player must stand in the same spot. The other participants try to elude being “frozen” and free up those who have already been tagged by tapping them and saying “unfreeze.”
According to the APD posting, the “misguided citizen” didn’t count on the following problems when trying to get :
1 — He apparently forgot to let the officers know they were part of the game.
“The police, including the tribal police, didn’t realize the misguided citizen was playing freeze tag, and he had made it to base (the Reservation), and they were supposed to be playing, too,” reads the post.
2 — He apparently thought Poarch’s boundaries protected him from arrest or prosecution, since the tribal lands are those of an independent nation.
“The police, including the tribal police, completely ignored his announcement that he had made it onto the reservation and therefore law enforcement had no authority to arrest him,” the police PIO reported, noting that the suspect “actually was not that nice about it.”
3— He apparently forgot to properly explain the game’s rules to the lawmen, as the APD post included that, “The misguided citizen expressed to the tribal officer that he (the officer) was breaking the rules of freeze tag as he was handcuffing him.”
4— He apparently forgot that he was wanted by several agencies, including Poarch police, on numerous warrants. Game over.
“Since the misguided citizen had multiple arrest warrants with multiple agencies, including with the tribal police, along with new charges, that ended his version of freeze tag prematurely,” concluded the post, which expressed hope that the man “will learn from his mistakes and seek guidance from people who give much better advice.”