Napoleon Harris Thwarts Robbery, Aids In Murder Arrests

For most fans of the Minnesota Vikings, the name Napoleon Harris is one that conjures up memories of the Randy Moss trade back in 2005. Harris was sent to the Vikings, along with a first round draft choice, in exchange for Moss in March of that year, and spent a couple of seasons manning the middle linebacker spot for the purple.

Harris has been out of the NFL since the end of the 2008 season, and it turns out he’s had a pretty interesting life since then, too. He’s served as a state senator in his native Illinois since 2013, and he and his wife own a pair of pizza parlors in the Chicago area. Those pizza parlors are what give us this story that appeared yesterday in the Washington Post (via the St. Paul Pioneer Press).

Beggars Pizza received a call just before closing time back on 6 September. As Harris had told the regular delivery person to go home and decided he would handle any late-night deliveries himself, he took this pie to the location that he was given on the phone. The home at that address, as it turns out, was vacant. Harris was greeted by one man on the porch of the house, and three more came out of the bushes after his arrival.

“They put a chokehold on the senator, but to no avail. They were really trying to choke him to death, and he was just too strong. He out-powered all four of them,” he said, according to CBS 2. “As they were all beating on him, one guy just went out of his way and really hit him hard, and Napoleon never moved.”

Howard added, “He just looked at him like Hulk Hogan, and from that the guys knew that we better get out of here, because we can’t get this guy down.”

The incident continued, as Harris followed his assailants to a lumberyard in the area. The men abandoned their vehicle and got away, but police checked the vehicle they used and found blood on the inside. It was determined that the vehicle and the blood belonged to a man named Lester Roy Jones. Jones’ body was found in an abandoned house in Georgia a few days later. It turns out that the men had lured Jones to the house in question and subsequently killed him. They then fled the scene in Jones’ vehicle.

Based on the description of the attackers that Harris gave the authorities, the police tracked down three of the four suspects and arrested them. Two of them have been charged with Jones’ murder and several other crimes, while the story doesn’t specify what one of the attackers (who is classed as a juvenile) has been charged with. Police are still looking for the fourth suspect in the crime.

Thankfully Harris wasn’t badly hurt in the incident, and his alert actions in the aftermath of what happened helped ensure that some truly terrible people appear to have been brought to justice.