Inset: Robert Langlais. Background: Police in Massachusetts found Langlis hiding in the chimney after he allegedly ran from them (Fall River Police Department).
He definitely wasn’t Santa Claus.
Police officers in Fall River, Massachusetts, were serving a search warrant in a home on the 100 block of Canal Street when two men took off running. One man jumped on the roof and onto a parked car to elude capture.
“He’s on the roof!” one officer said in body camera video. “Get down here or I’m gonna come up there and grab you.”
One man jumped on the roof and onto a parked car to elude capture. The other man, 33-year-old Robert Langlais, “invoked the essence of the seasonal icon and attempted to hide inside of a chimney,” cops said. A man walking his dog alerted officers to what was happening.
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“I heard some screaming, I looked up and in that back house … he want down the chimney,” the witness said.
“He’s in the chimney?” the officer responded.
Cops went up to the roof and, sure enough, there was Langlais about halfway down the smokestack.
“You’re an idiot,” said one officer. “Are you stuck? Can you breathe fine?”
Unlike Santa who slithers down millions of chimneys each Christmas Eve despite his large frame, Langlais couldn’t quite fit all the way down. Officers had to take out part of the chimney, brick by brick, in order to rescue Langlais. Paramedics took him to the hospital to be checked out and once he was cleared, cops took him to jail on drug charges along with the slew of outstanding warrants he had.
