Jean-Paul Lapierre, a Boston resident was in Chicago for The Marathon. Lapierre says that he has run The Chicago Marathon 12 times. LaPierre is being credited with disarming a robber on The Blue Line on Sunday morning while he was on his way to The Chicago Marathon.
WGN TV published video showing Lapierre holding the would be robber at bay. It was reported that the man was asking passengers for change when he took out his gun before Lapierre disarmed the man.
This isn’t the first time La Pierre has been labeled as a hero or a ‘Good Samaritan’. In December of 2015 LaPierre was credited with rescuing a 1 year old boy from a chain reaction car crash.
In August of this year, Lapierre also received commendation for recovering a Burmese Python in a Newton, MA backyard. Pet Snake Found by Self-Proclaimed Expert in Newton Backyard
Shortly after the story aired, my email and messenger started blowing up. Many of the messages included this screen grab from The WGN story.
Lapierre was wearing a bib from The 2016 Chicago Marathon. He was not registered for The 2019 Chicago Marathon. The bib from 2016 was not his, either. In fact, I could find no record of him competing in any Chicago Marathon, despite WGN reporting that Lapierre has claimed that Sunday was his 12th Chicago Marathon.
in an update to the WGN article, Lapierre admits to banditing the race.
Perhaps Runner’s World should update their article, You Can Bandit a Race without Being an A**Hole with this additional rule:
12. You WILL Disarm a Robber Prior To Banditing a Race
In all seriousness, my stance on banditing has been clear. There is never a time when it is ok to bandit a race. While I am not focusing on bandits to the extent that I have in the past, I am not giving them a pass. With Lapierre, you can applaud his actions on the train, while at the same time be critical of his behavior as a bandit.
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Bandit Nabs Bandit on His Way to Bandit a Race.
I ran and I saw like multiple cops and volunteers take people out of the course so I don’t know how he ran without bibs.
He was running with a bib, just not a valid one. In the picture he has a bib for someone else from a previous year.
Sorry, but this is just way too many cases of over-the-top scenarios where he looks like a hero. Marathons included.
He seems thirsty for adoration and I suspect that more than a few of these scenes are embellished by him to impress others.
This was my thought, even Bruce Willis might be asking whether it is credible that all this happens to one person.
Chicago Marathon should send him an invoice for 12 marathons.
Runner calls out bandit for disarming robber. What a headline
Double letters strike again
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