In the end, it was a one-on-one battle between New York State Police Sergeant Jay Cook, 47, and escaped convict David Sweat, 35, in an upstate New York cornfield two miles south of the Canadian border.
Sweat fought the law and the law won.
Cook, a 21-year law enforcement veteran, was on patrol by himself Sunday about 3 pm eastern about 5 miles north of the 22-square mile search area where as many as 1,000 fellow officers were looking for Sweat, when he spotted a man dressed in camouflage clothing jogging on Coveytown Road in the Town of Constable, just 2 miles north of the Village of Malone, New York.
Cook called to the man to stop. Instead of stopping, the man looked back, turned north and plunged into farmer Tom McDonald’s cornfield, running straight towards a tree line a mile and a half from the border.
As the man turned to look at him briefly, Cook recognized the face. It was David Sweat, the still-at-large convict whose fellow escapee Richard Matt, 49, had been shot and killed 12 miles to the south just two days earlier.
Cook, who is also a firearms instructor for the troop to which he is assigned of the New York State Police (Troop B which covers Franklin, Clinton, St. Lawrence, and Essex Counties), grabbed his service weapon and took off after Sweat.
According to a 2006 press release, the Glock pistol, Model 37, .45 caliber, is the service weapon provided by the New York State Police to its 5,400 officers.
Cook soon realized he would not catch the escaped convict on foot before he reached the tree line.
He raised his service weapon, aimed at Sweat and fired twice.
