Lights from the Las Vegas strip glowed in the distance as the whup whup whup of helicopter blades overhead sent Jon Ponder’s hammering heart into overdrive. Jon squinted his eyes against the glare of the searchlight that had him focused in its crosshairs. Flashing police lights strobed and sirens screamed. Police dogs barked, lunging on their leashes.
“Get out of the driver’s seat!” The booming voice sounded like God to Jon’s rattled brain. Eyes blinded and head throbbing, he climbed out of his car.
“Raise your hands!”
Jon lifted his hands.
“Get on your knees!”
Jon dropped to his knees.
“On the ground!”
Jon fell forward face down, spread eagle on the ground, as someone pulled his hands behind his back, snapping handcuffs in place.
“You have the right to remain silent….”
It was a good thing Jon was in handcuffs. By the time they got him to jail the fury he’d carried around since he was a kid had erupted into a raging wildfire.
Fighting and kicking, he went after anyone who came near him. Despite his drunken stupor and drug-induced high, he knew they had him cold on a string of bank robberies.
At 38 years old, he was facing 23 years in federal prison.
Jon Ponder had nothing left to lose. Already prone to violence, he was out of control when the door opened and a man he’d never seen before walked into the room. The man was Caucasian, in his 50s, graying and with eyes the color of the deep blue sea.
Jon looked at the name on his badge. He was Special Agent Richard Beasley, the FBI agent who’d tracked him down and arrested him. The moment he stepped into the room, something washed over Jon. It wasn’t a feeling he’d often experienced.
Peace.
No one said a word, but Jon felt as though that booming voice spoke to every cell in his quivering body.
Everything’s going to be all right.
“At that point in my life, nothing looked like it would ever be all right again,” Jon recalls. “I smoked three packs a day and was addicted to multiple drugs, including heroin and cocaine. I was so violent they put me in solitary confinement while I waited for my court date. The withdrawal was awful.
APRIL '14 : BVOV : 11
