Guy rens a red, hits a cyclist, fights with cyclist, tries to steal a truck, bites someone, then climbs a tree, needing to be tasered to be arrested. Police say drugs may be involved?!?!I hope so.


FORT LAUDERDALE -- What started out as a minor crash Tuesday morning, ended up with a broken bike, a bit driver, an attempted carjacking, and a suspect trying to hide in a tree, the Broward Sheriff's Office said.

Here's what BSO spokesman Hugh Graf said happened just before 8 a.m. on Tuesday:


Frank Henry John, 41, was driving a 2005 Cadillac west on Riverland Road. When he reached State Road 7, he ignored a red light, crossed into the northbound lanes of S.R. 7, and struck a bicyclist, 46-year-old Randy Jones, of Lauderdale Lakes. Jones wasn't injured, but his bike was damaged. Jones confronted John about the crash and soon the two men were fighting each other.

When a witness, Chad Hodder, 34, of Fort Lauderdale, got out of his pickup to intervene, Graf said John tried to steal the truck. Hodder grabbed John and pulled him from the pickup, but John bit Hodder's arm and managed to get loose. With Hodder in pursuit, John ran and climbed into a tree in the 2500 block of Whale Harbor Lane and refused to come down.

Deputies and Fort Lauderdale police tried for more than an hour to coax the suspect from the tree before a deputy finally used a Taser to gain control of him.

Even after John was restrained on an ambulance gurney, he continued to fight with deputies and officers, Graf said. John, who lives in Miramar, was finally sedated and taken to a nearby hospital.

Also hospitalized was Hodder. He was taken to Plantation General Hospital for treatment of the bite wounds.

John's bizarre and aggressive behavior may have been caused by illegal drugs, said Graf in a prepared release.