There aren’t a lot of rocket scientists in the world. And then there are those who seemingly don’t even seem to fill the ranks of those who don’t qualify to be rocket scientists. Yes, it actually did happen: someone did finally steal a police car and lead police on a chase…after their police car. And yes, police did catch the police car.[icopyright one button toolbar]
The Los Angeles Times’ Tony Perry offers us the story (no, this not The Onion). It involves a 22-year-old woman arrested early Saturday morning on suspicion of stealing a San Diego police car and leading authorities on a high-speed chase that ended in Oceanside.
Now as any San Diegan well tell you, the distance from San Diego to Oceanside isn’t three minutes. At a minimum from the northern part of the city it’d be about 20 minutes (and that’s really underestimating it).
News reports note that she’s the alleged wrong-doer. And I guess it is possible that they pulled the wrong person out of the car and someone else got in and took her place. But here are the details:
Felicitas Flores faces possible charges of drunk driving, grand theft auto, assault with a deadly weapon, evading arrest and vandalism, according to jail records. The records indicate she has had two prior arrests for drunk driving. She is in jail in lieu of $280,000 bail.
The incident began close to midnight just east of downtown when a woman stole a parked police car and sped off, police said.
Not a smart decision…
After receiving information from drivers about a police car driving erratically on Interstate 5, San Diego police and California Highway Patrol cars began chasing the stolen vehicle. At Carlsbad, a spike strip was used to slow down the car, which had reportedly reached speeds up to 90 mph.
The end of story? Nope:
Even with deflated tires, the driver of the stolen vehicle continued northward until pulling into a rest area north of Oceanside.
Over yet? Nope:
Quickly surrounded by police vehicles, the driver attempted to drive away, smashing head-on into one of the police cars, police said.
It doesn’t look good Ms. Flores, to be sure.
Pleading insanity won’t work.
They don’t accept a stupidity plea yet.
Wait: She can plead she was merely drunk at the time.
FOOTNOTE TO SAN DIEGO FIRE DEPARTMENT: Keep an eye on your fire engines.
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.