It’s possible for suspects to escape the police for a while, but once there’s a drone following them, it’s usually only a matter of time before they’re caught. Video shows a driver and a passenger being caught riding in a stolen vehicle in Colorado and managing to flee from several police cruisers. But that didn’t stop the cops for long and the driver soon tried to run away on foot, interrupting a birthday party during the hot pursuit.
Both the driver and passenger attempted to escape on foot
On September 12 at around 7 p.m., officers received an alert from the Flock camera system to a stolen vehicle at 17th and Dayton, according to a post by the Aurora Police Department on its official social media pages.
Video taken of the pursuit from various police bodycam and dashcam footage shows several police cruisers attempting to stop the unnamed driver of a black SUV as it goes off Interstate 70 and into the grass. They had attempted a traffic stop of the vehicle, but the driver did not comply. In a reckless move, the driver began travelling in the opposite lanes of traffic, temporarily preventing police from pursuing.
That’s when law enforcement deployed drones from the department’s Real Time Information Center to track the black SUV through a neighborhood in Denver. Some time later, the vehicle is spotted weaving through the side streets before entering a parking lot with a bouncy castle where the driver and a passenger bail from the car.
The driver, wearing a black shirt and blue jeans, is seen running across the lot. The video then cuts forward, showing the suspect sprinting through a cul-de-sac and along the side of a house. Police say that the suspect had crashed a birthday party during the escape.
The video cuts to an officer seeing that the driver was heading toward their location. That’s when he and several other officers vault out of the cruise and start running to a nearby residence to cut the suspect off. When they arrive at the house, at least four cops catch the driver trying to hide beneath a red truck. Without any further means of escape, the suspect decides to lay flat on the driveway and is arrested without further incident.
Passenger tells police they need to go to the bathroom
Meanwhile, several bystanders had surrounded the black SUV, and one of them discovered the passenger hiding inside an outhouse next to the vehicle. The passenger went through the open gate to the parking lot and ran to the road before running straight into four cops with their weapons drawn. They command the suspect to get on the ground, but the passenger complains that they needed to pee before finally complying.
The post says that both the driver and passenger were taken into custody. Officers found two handguns, one of which was stolen, and drug paraphernalia inside the stolen SUV.
The duo faces multiple charges including vehicular eluding, vehicle theft in the third degree, criminal possession of an identification document, theft, first-degree criminal trespass, and possession of drug paraphernalia.
“You can flee, drive the wrong way, crash the party or hide under a truck,” the post from the Aurora Police Department said, “but you can’t hide from APD. We find our suspects, always.”
Despite the growing controversy behind the use of Flock cameras by numerous police departments across the US, many commenters on Facebook praised how the Aurora Police Department had utilized the technology. One wrote, “When used correctly Flock cameras WORK. Aurora doing Aurora things.”
Another said, “Day one taught in kindergarten class: All the little Flock haters are the first little people to want Flock cameras used when their vehicles are stolen.”
