There’s a disturbing trend we see all over the nation involving criminals stealing first responders’ vehicles. That means they’re just walking up and driving off in police cars, firetrucks, ambulances, etc. and often leading cops on quite the chase.
See the aftermath of a fire engine crashing into a house.
It’s happened again, this time with a Sacramento Fire Department pickup truck. Unlike in some cases, the suspect wasn’t able to get away but instead was taken into custody after police deployed some pepper balls.
Before that, the suspect led police on quite the chase. But they were able to spike the tires, then one officer pitted the pickup truck, stopping the pursuit cold. In footage recorded by KCRA 3, the truck doesn’t look to be in too bad of shape, although the tires are obviously shredded.
In classic stubborn criminal behavior, even though he was caught the suspect decided to disobey police orders and wouldn’t get out of the truck. Officers decided to use pepper balls on the guy, a most unpleasant thing to experience firsthand. That got him out of the pickup in a hurry.
We’ve said this before and we’re going to say it again: why isn’t there a device which prevents just anyone from driving off in first responders’ vehicles? We know they often have to keep the engine idling, so if there was something they kept on them with say an NFC chip that was necessary to put the transmission into gear, that could prevent so many theft incidents like this one.
In this case, the pickup truck wasn’t at the scene of a fire or accident. It apparently was at the fire station. That’s pretty bold for someone to walk up from off the street and swipe a fire department vehicle in the station, but it appears that’s what this guy did.
At least the guy didn’t crash into some innocent bystanders or this crime would’ve been so much worse.
Image via KCRA 3/YouTube
[…] another fire truck has been stolen, this time in Sacramento, California. It’s the latest installment in a sad trend we’ve been […]