Heroin user flees into Madison zoo, arrested at gunpoint … by the polar bears

Polar bears didn’t actually arrest man

MADISON, Wis. — A heroin user led police in Madison on a wild chase that ended at the city zoo.

Police said the incident began Wednesday afternoon when a police detective found a 52-year-old unconscious man in his car with a needle in his hand. 

After knocking on his window, he woke up and began rolling down that window, but also reaching to start the car.

Police ordered him not to start his car, but that’s precisely what he did. An officer reached into the car to try and turn it off, but his arm got stuck.

Backup arrived and yelled for the officer to break the window to free his arm, so he did with his baton.

Thompson drove off, maneuvering between parked cars and a just-arriving ambulance. 

He drove into the Henry Vilas Zoo employee parking lot, climbed over a eight-foot fence topped with barbed wire and entered the zoo.

An officer finally stopped the man at gunpoint behind the polar bear exhibit, where foliage kept Thompson from running any further.

Officers found drug paraphernalia along the man’s path as well as a folded Wisconsin Department of Corrections appointment reminder in his pocket. Inside the paper was a substance that later tested positive for heroin.