The thief had escaped before the police ____.

Fill in the blank with the correct option from the following.

came

The correct answer is Option (1) → came

The sentence indicates a sequence of events in the past. The action of the thief escaping ("had escaped") happened before the action of the police arriving.

Therefore, the correct verb form to use is the simple past tense "came":

"The thief had escaped before the police came."