The “Barefoot Bandit”, , has been apprehended by police after a dramatic high-speed boat chase in the Bahamas, reports. The teenage fugitive has been playing cat and mouse with authorities for over two years, earning his moniker by committing his crimes without shoes.
The elusive teen’s capture could not have been more dramatic, befitting a high-octane action film. At 2 a.m, Harris-Moore was spotted running barefoot with a knapsack and a gun at the Romora Bay Resort on Harbour Island. “They’re going to kill me,” he told the marina’s security director, Kenneth Strachan.
As Harris-Moore attempted to steal a boat chased by a flotilla of police vessels, he ran aground, not realizing how shallow the water was. Police soon surrounded the boat and shot out its engines.
“At one point the boy threw the computer in the water and put a gun to his head.He was going to kill himself. Police talked him out of it,” Strachan said.
Harris-Moore, who has been on the run since 2008 when he escaped from a juvenile halfway house in Renton, Washington after pleading guilty to three counts of burglary, is suspected of breaking into airports in South Dakota and Nebraska, of flying a stolen plane in the Bahamas and is linked to a string of burglaries and several car thefts in Oregon and Washington.
“We’ve confirmed that it’s him–the ‘barefoot bandit’, Colton Harris-Moore” said Steve Dean, assistant special agent in charge for FBI’s Seattle Washington office. “I’m glad this is over,”.
Read more about the Barefoot Bandit in our January feature, .
–Shauna Sweeney