Action Backfires

Geoff Bell leaped into action when he saw a motorist crash into another vehicle and speed away last weekend in Durham, N.C. Bell, 31, chased after the suspect, eventually cornering him on a dead-end street. Bell got out and waved at the driver to stop, but the man turned his vehicle around and started toward him, Bell said. That’s when Bell reached for his 9 mm pistol and fired one shot, aiming at the vehicle’s tires. Now, the suspect is in jail but Bell himself has been arrested on a felony charge of discharging a firearm into an occupied vehicle. “There were no thanks whatsoever, other than ‘We’re going to have to arrest you, Mr. Bell,”’ he said. “I hate that the police see me as a bad person, but I was just trying to help.”