A pair of hunting guides from Maine are being hailed as heroes after helping chase down a suspected killer in a high-speed pursuit on Aug. 15. Matt York and Kyle Beaudet, who run Backroads Guide Service, said they didn’t hesitate to give chase in their rented U-Haul truck after they witnessed the suspect shoot a man on the highway in broad daylight. After all, York said, the two bear hunters had experience chasing predators before.
“We have been in a lot of intense situations hunting together with our hounds,” York wrote in a Facebook post, “and we know how to handle something like this.”
York told reporters they’d just rented the U-Haul in Windham that Friday afternoon. They were sitting in traffic next to a motorcyclist when York heard two shots fired from a nearby car. He then saw the man on the motorcycle fall dead. Bystanders went to his aid while York drove after the fleeing suspect.
Beaudet, who was riding shotgun, called 911 to share the vehicle’s license plate and location as they continued to give chase in the rental truck. A short clip recorded by a witness that day shows their U-Haul screaming around a corner and following the suspect’s Kia SUV.
“I wish I could of prevented the shooting but that wasn’t possible but what I did know was I wasn’t letting him shoot anyone else in front of me I was going to do whatever I could to take him out and make sure the rest of the public was safe,” York wrote on Facebook.
The two hunting guides eventually lost sight of the suspect near the Windham/Raymond town line, according to an update from the Windham Police Department. The suspect, identified as 48-year-old James Ford, was later found dead in a parking lot with a self-inflicted gunshot wound. His death was ruled a suicide, and the WPD says it is still investigating the shooting.
Although local police thanked York and Beaudet (who they identified only as “witnesses in a UHAUL truck”) for providing the license plate and helping them catch the suspect, MWTW-8 News reports that they also told the men to stop the chase. High-speed vehicle chases are generally considered dangerous even when conducted by police officers, and there are national and local policies in place around them for that reason.
It’s unclear if the two Mainers heeded their request, or if they just stopped their pursuit after losing sight of the suspect’s vehicle. But York told reporters days after the chase that they were fully prepared if “handling” the situation came down to deadly force. At one point in the chase, as they drove through a parking lot, York rammed the suspect’s vehicle with the U-Haul truck. He says he would have fired shots, too, if there weren’t so many innocent bystanders around.
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“I had my .44 Smith & Wesson with me … but there were too many people’s lives in danger,” he told MaineWire. “If I was going to take a shot I wanted to make sure it was an ethical shot.”
The two hunting guides were shot at, however. York says he ducked when he saw the suspect aiming at them from the side of the road, but that neither them nor the truck was hit. He also said the incident reminded him why he feels more at home in the backwoods than he does in a busy town.
“Yeah,” Beaudet added. “We like the woods a lot better.”
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