Law Student Helps Capture Suspect in Purse-Snatching

A 20-year-old man who recently arrived from Honduras might need an attorney, Los Angeles police said, but he probably did not appreciate the second-year law student who got on his case outside the Southwestern University School of Law.

According to Rampart Division Officer David Zeigler, Douglas Swope, 26, was on a break between classes Tuesday afternoon in the 600 block of South Westmoreland Avenue when he saw a man grab a purse containing $80 from fellow student Tracy Talbot, 23, as she was feeding a parking meter across the street.

Swope jumped on his motorcycle and pursued the fleeing man through the nearby Bullocks Wilshire parking lot, where Robert Goe, 23, an attorney, seized the purse. The man, later identified as Ruben Zepeda, 20, kept running.

When he reached the Sheraton-Town House a block away, Swope jumped off his motorcycle and tackled the unarmed man. With the aid of another law student who had remained in the chase on foot, he held the man for police.