Police Chase Leads To 3 Car Accident & 3 Under Arrest
FORT LAUDERDALE (CBSMiami) – A high-speed pursuit through two counties ended with three suspects under arrest and two Fort Lauderdale Police cruisers along with a Broward County car wrecked in an intersection.
Jeremy Marquis Thomas, 22, Darius Rashaad Hall, 22, and James Steel 19, were arrested on charges including fleeing and eluding and obstruction. Two of the three men suffered injuries in the takedown and were transported to a local hospital.
The chase started after a Collier County deputy spotted the car, a Black Chrysler 200, that law enforcement was looking for in relation to a North Naples burglary, according to the Collier County Sheriff's Office.
Collier County deputies began the pursuit at 10:05 a.m. on I-75 near mile marker 96. Collier County deputies continued the chase until mile marker 21 on I-75 where Broward County Sheriff deputies and other departments picked up the pursuit.
Slideshow: Images From Tuesday's Multi-County Police Chase
However, once the Chrysler got onto I-595, officers in pursuit began to back off of the chase.
The alleged burglars turned into a residential area and were continuing to be followed by helicopters. Police again started pursuing the black Chrysler 200, which they believe may have been a rental car.
After driving around and around through the residential area, the three alleged burglary suspects bailed out of the car and ran in three different directions.
"They jumped like four or five fences, they jumped and split up and went in different directions and started jumping gates, you know," said Eric Jones who saw the men running.
"Once I pulled up in the yard, oh my God, I didn't know what to think," said Mamie Gomillion. "I said "oh my God, what done happened, what done happened."
Gomillion said she saw the men run through her yard and was afraid to go outside to see what was going on.
"They was in my yard and that was frightening, it still frightening even to go out there and open the back door now, wondering did they get all of them," said Gomillion.
Police on the scene moved in were able to round up the trio quickly.
At some point during the pursuit of the suspects, two Fort Lauderdale Police cruisers that were en route to the chase were involved in an accident with a silver Honda Civic that belongs to Broward County. The three car accident happened at the intersection of 27th Avenue and Sistrunk Boulevard.
Annette Payne heard it from nearly a block away.
"You heard a 'boom, bam'. That car right there is messed up, I'm telling you," said Payne as recalled seeing an injured officer. "He was bleeding from the head."
The officers were transported from the scene of the accident, but their conditions are unknown.
Broward County Schools placed Parkway Middle School, Broward Estates Elementary School, and Martin Luther King Elementary School on lockdown due to the heavy police presence in the area, but the lockdown was lifted shortly afterwards.
