Harvest Time to Hard Time

“It didn’t hit home what I had gotten myself into

until I had to put on a bullet-proof vest.”

Mark Tanner, Farmer from Kankakee, Illinois

Photo by Mike Voss/Kankakee Daily Journal

Mark Tanner, a farmer living near Kankakee, Illinois (population 26,840), harvested more than corn recently while helping local police with a manhunt. It all started when the police pulled over a 19-year-old man for a traffic stop. The young man made a break for it and hid in Mr. Tanner’s cornfield. The police tried a canine unit and even an airplane to locate the suspect, but no luck. That’s when they called on Mr. Tanner and his combine to clear the field. It was a long day of combining on Mr. Tanner’s part and negotiating on the police’s part before the fugitive was caught. But after his arrest, the young man’s journey from harvest time to hard time was quick. The field he was hiding in, as it turned out, was right across the road from the jail.

Read the article → Farmer clears cornfield to help capture fugitive