A naked man led cops in the central California city of Stockton on one of the stranger chases they are likely ever to engage in, leaping nude across several rooftops after they knocked on his door attempting to serve a warrant for his arrest Monday afternoon.
The man, identified as John Redmon, 36, did not even have the cover of darkness. It was around noon when he took to the rooftops in the buff, in a desperate, and desperately weird, attempt to evade capture.
Police finally took the naked man down using their batons , according to local TV news outlet Fox 40 .
The 300 block of Edan Avenue in Stockton was described by residents as a quiet, generally safe area in the city which has seen a recent spike in violent crime. The city of 300,000 — the 13th largest in the state — had a record 71 murders in 2012 , though numbers dropped in 2013.
After the 2008 financial crisis, Stockton was forced to cut its police force by 20 percent. It recently approved a tax measure to fund hiring more than a hundred new officers.
But in this north Stockon neighborhood of Valley Oak, Redmon’s bizarre evasive action was still a surprise.
“We have never seen anything like that around here at all —but I wish I would have,” chuckled resident Chris Mays, interviewed by Fox 40 . “It is a nice neighborhood. It is strange that that happened.”
According to Stockton’s Channel 10 News , police showed up at Redmon’s home intending to arrest him on charges of stalking, as well as drug offenses. No word regarding whether he was on drugs when police arrived, but he sure acted like it.
First, he slipped out of the back door of his home. As police looked for him, preparing for what they likely thought was going to be another routine rundown of a vainly fleeing suspect, Redmon suddenly appeared on the roof of his house — buck naked.
He then made his escape, leaping onto the roof of another house, and then another. Police say he acrobatically jumped onto four rooftops before leaping to the ground.
But the naked man kept running, bounding over several neighborhood fences before the officers caught up to him. That’s when they deployed their batons.
For his au naturel efforts, Redmon was hit with a resisting arrest charge on top of the other serious charges he was already facing. Apparently, police charitably decided to forego an indecent exposure charge for the naked man.