Armed Burglar, Caught in the Act, Refuses to Surrender to Police

A Milwaukee man on federal probation after serving more than 20 years in prison for armed bank robbery is behind bars again after he was caught in the act of burglarizing a Wauwatosa home, police say.

Rickey Harris, 48, was carrying a switchblade when he leaped out a window of the home and refused to surrender to Tosa police officers with their guns drawn, then led them on a long foot chase through residential streets.

According to police reports:

It began with a 911 call from the frightened resident of the upper unit of a duplex in the 300 block of North 68th Street just before noon on Wednesday. She described a suspicious looking man outside casing the back of the house, and while she remained on the line, she said she heard rustling sounds from below.

Two officers arrived in front of the duplex, and one went around each side of the building. The officer on the north side quickly noticed an open side window with the screen missing and drew his gun.

The officer was separated from the area beneath the window by a fence. Before he could proceed further, Harris leaned out the window and looked left and then right – right into the gaze of an armed police officer.

The perpetrator pulls a knife

Before the officer even spoke, Harris stuck out his arm and waved a switchblade and said, “Don’t come over that fence, (expletive).” The officer pointed his gun directly at the burglar and ordered him to drop the knife, then radioed that he was confronting an armed suspect.

The officer again ordered him to drop the knife, and again Harris ignored him. He then jumped out window and ran toward the back of the house

Meanwhile, the officer's partner had been making his way cautiously around the other side of the house, and upon hearing his partner's radio warning, had also drawn his gun.

He and Harris both rounded the northeast corner of the house at the same time, coming within inches of actually running into one another. The officer, face-to-face with a knife-wielding offender, held his fire and also ordered Harris to drop his weapon.

The first officer had by then climbed over the fence and found his partner and Harris squared-off in the back yard. Harris waved the knife menacingly and repeatedly said, "Go ahead, shoot me!" The officer fired his Taser, but only one dart hit Harris, failing to immobilized him.

Harris backed off slowly toward the alley behind the house, and when he reached it, turned and ran.

The chase begins

Both officers gave chase, and one said that he couldn't catch up to Harris but was never more than 40 feet behind him as he ran nine blocks up and down streets and alleys in the neighborhood east of 68th Street.

A third officer who had been called finally stopped Harris in the 6500 block of Blue Mound Road, but even then Harris refused to surrender. He had thrown down the knife halfway through the chase, but he would not go to the ground.

The officer said Harris seemed very winded, so he walked up to him and gave him a push, which knocked him off balance. Another shove, and he fell to the ground, where he was handcuffed. As Harris was being ushered into the back of a squad car, the arresting officer noticed a Taser dart still embedded in the suspect's back and removed it.

Harris was on probation after being convicted in May 1989 of armed bank robbery and sentenced to 266 months in a federal penitentiary. He had been released in November 2009, but was under five years' supervision.

What his life was worth

What did Harris briefly get that made it seem worthwhile to risk going back to prison? The resident of the home he broke into found four watches missing from a drawer. Two were found in the back yard; the other two were being sought along the route of Harris' flight.

"It's pretty amazing," said Capt. Jeff Sutter. "A guy with a knife runs into an officer with his gun drawn, then takes our guys on a nine-block chase, and nobody gets hurt.

"I asked our officer why he didn't shoot him. I mean, they're faced off, a foot apart. Nobody would have said it wasn't justified.

"He told me he just knew the guy was going to run. He wasn't going to attack. I asked him how he knew, and he couldn't say. He just knew.

"It was the difference of half-a-pound of pressure on the trigger, and it happens in one second. That's how long you have to make up your mind."