Westminster : Police Seek Man Who Gave Officers the Slip

A Westminster man triggered an intense manhunt after he talked officers who had arrested him into taking him to a hospital and then escaped, police said Sunday.

Police, who would only identify the man by his last name of Rinker, gave few details of what one officer described as an “embarrassing incident.”

The man eluded a police dragnet that included--according to residents--midnight police helicopter surveillance of a neighborhood near Humana Hospital, as well as random searches of motorists’ cars driving in the area.

Rinker, who had numerous warrants for unpaid traffic tickets, had first been arrested Saturday night at his residence, according to Sgt. Warren O’Neill.

When he demanded medical attention for back pains, police took him to Humana Hospital.

While Rinker was in the hospital’s radiology department waiting for X-rays, he apparently “just walked away,” a hospital spokeswoman said.

“A police officer was sitting with him, according to our staff, but obviously not with him all the time,” the spokeswoman said.