Officer who made tackle to end police chase shares her story

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What a tackle. Don't be fooled by her size, this officer does not mess around.

A suspect may have thought she had a chance fleeing from Detroit to Hamtramck, but she had another thing coming Tuesday morning.

"Whenever you're in chases, it's very common for your adrenaline to take over," Officer Nikole Jabour said. "So you start doing things that you don't realize you can do."

Jabour was quick to take the lead with her partner when a high speed chase crossed into Hamtramck. The suspect was a 28-year old woman from Detroit.

"She went through an intersection and her wheel was wobbling because she jumped a bunch of curbs," the officer said.

Reaching high speeds, the suspect dipped in and out of busy narrow neighborhoods and even drove across lawns. It was a chase that would have normally been called off, but there was reason to believe an abducted child was in the van.

"A Detroit officer had cut her off with his car, and I knew she was about to start fleeing on foot," she said. "So I started opening my door waiting for her to flee, and right when I saw her jump out, I jumped out, and I went after her.

"I've never been in a running tackle. That was a first. That was fun."

Her loved ones watched the live stream of the chase and arrest at home - shocked at what they saw.

"My phone has been going off all day," Jabour said. "My dad texted me immediately and all he said was 'Are you okay?' I said 'Yes, Dad I'm fine.' And then my mom said, 'That was so cool.' And my brother said, 'I can't stop watching it.'"

How's that for girl power? But Jabour, a native of Dearborn, shows that every day as one of only two female officers patrolling the streets of Hamtramck.

"Sometimes on the street I might get treated slightly differently by people, sometimes in a positive sense and sometimes in a negative sense," Jabour said. "I view myself as equal to the men that I work with, and as long as you can view yourself as equal, you can become anything you want to become."

The officer of two years is quick to share the credit.

"I know my tackle has kind of been getting a lot of press," she said. "But really if it wasn't for the other officers involved; the officers that were involved in the leads, they called out great locations. That way we were able to get there quicker.

"The (Detroit police officer) that cut her off was able to stop her vehicle. There were multiple crashes involved but luckily no one was injured."

The suspect is in custody, expected to soon be charged with fleeing and eluding police, and being in possession of a felony vehicle connected to crimes in Flint and Hamtramck.