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'Some Damn Fine Police Work:' NYPD Thwarts Ransom Plot With Dramatic Fire Escape Arrest
Following a car crash, attempted extortion, a kidnapping, a ransom plot and a dramatic police chase, Rondell Halley and Francisco Jimenez were finally nabbed by police officers in New York.
Police in New York City boasted Tuesday about “some damn fine police work” after three officers thwarted an alleged kidnapping and ransom plot.
“Bad guys in jail? Yep. Anybody hurt? Nope. A gun off the streets? Yep. We'll go ahead and label that 'some damn fine police work,” the NYPD’s 20th precinct said in a statement posted to Facebook.
Police said that it all began when a delivery man accidentally bumped into a parked car in Brooklyn with his delivery van.
“The two suspects approached the delivery man, said that they knew the owner of the parked car, and demanded cash for the damages,” police said. “When he refused, they kidnapped him at gunpoint. They then called the delivery man's boss and demanded cash for the release of the deliveryman and return of his vehicle.”
The suspects have been identified as Rondell Halley, 33, and Francisco Jimenez, 24.
The delivery man's boss agreed to meet the suspects to pay the ransom, then he hung up and called 911. He told police his employee was “being unlawfully imprisoned by armed perpetrators who were trying to extort money from him,” according to authorities.
They drove from Brooklyn to Manhattan's Upper West Side allegedly hoping to collect $700 from him, FOX 5 New York reports.
The officers then laid in wait for the suspects to arrive at the meeting spot. When they noticed the cops, they fled and ended up crashing their car after just a block, police say.
After the car crash, the suspects split up on foot: One was captured on the street. The other “was chased down the block, through a school, through an alleyway and up EIGHT STORIES on a fire escape, where he was finally captured," police said in a statement.
Police said they found a .25 pistol, heroin and cocaine in the suspects’ vehicle.
Both suspects are expected to be charged with kidnapping, criminal possession of a weapon and reckless endangerment.
Police have credited the work of Sgt. Sean Pallone, Officer Mark McCaffery and Officer Dorca Sosa for the successful capture of the suspects. McCaffery and Pallone were the ones that chased one of the alleged kidnappers up the fire escape.
[Photos: NYPD/Facebook]
