BPD apprehends suspect after he wiggled out of handcuffs

Jesse Treviño Rodriguez was on his way to the Brownsville City Jail Thursday afternoon on charges of drunken driving, when he managed to wiggle out of a pair of handcuffs and assault the police officer that arrested him.

Brownsville police officer Cristobal Abrego Jr. noticed Rodriguez, 42, “squirming in the back seat,” of his squadcar en route to the jail shortly after 6 p.m. near International Boulevard.

Minutes before that, Abrego had arrested Rodriguez on suspicion of driving while intoxicated.

“At the corner of Dan Street and International Boulevard I notified communications that I was stopping transport and that the suspect (Rodriguez) was trying to get out of the handcuffs,” according to Abrego’s police report. “When I opened the back door, the suspect, Jesse Treviño Rodriguez, started to push his way out of the back seat.”

Abrego pushed Rodriguez back into his squad car, but eventually the 5-foot-4-inch man, who weighs 200 pounds, “was able to overpower” Abrego and “push his way out of the back seat of my patrol unit.”

Before Rodriguez was completely out of the back seat of the police cruiser, Abrego pulled out his mace can and pepper sprayed Rodriguez’s face, according to the police report.

Rodriguez ran a few feet before him and Abrego fell to the ground and began to struggle. He hit the officer, then escaped on foot.

Abrego last saw Rodriguez run down an alley on the 1700 block of Wilson Street, before he “lost sight” of him.

Shortly thereafter, police officers found Rodriguez at his ex-wife’s home on the 2000 block of Diamante Drive, where he was drinking a beer on the porch and yelling obscenities at the police.

He was arrested on charges of driving while intoxicated, escape from custody, two counts on resisting arrest, aggravated assault on a public servant and evading arrest on foot.

Rodriguez was being held Friday night at the Carrizalez-Rucker Detention Center in Olmito in lieu of $40,000 in bonds set by Brownsville Municipal Judge J. Rolando Olvera Jr.