Hand posted a video, which has nearly a million views on TikTok, explaining his afternoon where "the craziest shit just happened."
@cocorumple What a fuckin Friday ##ferriswheelers ##savinbabies ##pewpew ##holyshit
? original sound - cocorumple
"I fucking gave this Uber driver her food and she comes back inside screaming, 'Motherfuckers stole my car and baby's in it!' So I jump in the truck and chase him with this lady.'"
The TikTok video is filled with twists and turns and with Hand's Texan accent, it feels like a recalling of a scene from Hell or High Water. We asked Hand to explain it all.
So, someone sent me your TikTok.
Sorry about all the cussing.
You're fine. So that really happened, huh?
Yeah, it was quite an ordeal. It was nuts.
So what happened exactly? You went to give the food to an Uber driver and then what?
Yeah, she came and picked food up, and when she did, she parked next to the door, like a lot of people do. She left her car running; she was just going to run inside really quick and grab the food and come out. She was inside like six or seven seconds. I was sitting there chatting with my kitchen manager, and all of a sudden she runs back inside hollering, screaming bloody murder, "They stole my car; they stole my car." I was like, "Well that sucks." But it didn't necessarily resonate with me. She followed it up with, "My baby is in the backseat; my baby is in the backseat," so then something clicked. I grabbed the phone and called 911 and tell them what's happening. She's losing her mind. She's freaked out, scared, hollering and screaming. She runs over and says, "Let me see your phone" and she downloads an app to see where her car's at. We get in the truck, burn outta here, I'm going down Market Center to Turtle Creek, we take a right next to the jail, we go over the bridge, and we're going 70, running lights, honking, going around people, at one point I'm going the wrong way into ongoing traffic. I'm doing all of this, while she's hollering, "Save my baby, save my baby," and while the baby daddy is on the phone cussing because she left the baby in the car and I'm on the phone with the police trying to give them coordinates of where the car is going and they're following my directions. We're zooming and all while, I'm trying to reach in the backseat and get my AR out of my backpack so I can load up just in case we catch this dude while he's still there. It was shit, ma'am. It was some shit.
Did you finally catch him? Where was he?
We caught him. He ran out of gas close to a CVS. I'm probably like 45 seconds behind him at this point, so he coasts into the CVS. By the time I pulled up and was behind him, the door was open and he was gone. He had ran and people were pointing where he was going. The cop pulled up right behind me. The baby was in the car.
What did the mother say to you once she was reunited with her baby?
She was still really shell-shocked while she was there, so I left and went back to work and said "God bless and good luck." She had that Vietnam stare. She was just weeping because she had her baby back. It was awesome. Later that night, her and her sisters came back and thanked me and then Sunday, the whole family came after church — her sisters, her aunts, her cousins, the baby's grandma was there. She was crying.
When did you record the TikTok?
There's so many cop cars at this point and I'm blocked in and I can't leave, so I'm pacing because my adrenaline is jacked. I made a quick video to send to my friends. I was like, "Guys, the craziest fucking shit just happened." So I sent it to them and then put it on Facebook and TikTok. Two hours later, it had 200,000 views.
It sounds like you were prepared for this kind of thing.
I definitely have never been in a high-speed chase with a mother chasing a carjacker with a baby in it; that's definitely never happened before. I'm from a small town of like 2,200 people, called West, and so with a country upbringing, I feel like anyone else would have done the same thing. But you're not wrong. It's not like you train for it, or dream about it, but kind of. When you're like 6 years old playing cops and robbers or video games, that's kind of the same thing, but this was real life.
I would have felt like at some point I was being set up.
So, people ask me that. I'm going to tell you this: If I would have been set up at that point, that woman needs to move to Hollywood because that was the best acting of all time. Plus I was on the phone with the police the whole time, so they would have got caught really quickly.
The child was checked out by Dallas Fire-Rescue, according to an email from the Dallas Police Department, and released unharmed to the mother. No one has been arrested.
