05/30/18 Miami Beach, FL – Homeless Man Steals South Beach Unmarked Police Car – Strikes Many Parked Vehicles And Totals Detective’s Car – Injured

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An unmarked Miami Beach police car was stolen in South Beach on Sunday night, halfway through a mostly uneventful Memorial Day weekend.

A homeless man stole the police car from 17th Street and Washington Avenue at 8:40 p.m. and sped away, according to the Miami Beach Police Department. He sped south on Meridian Avenue, striking cars parked on the east and west sides of the street, before losing control of the vehicle at 13th Street and Meridian Avenue, according to an arrest report released Monday. The car came to rest on its passenger side.

The suspect, 25-year-old Leon Daybrell Perrymond, was taken into custody and charged with third-degree grand theft of a vehicle, aggravated battery of an officer, fleeing police lights and sirens, and unlawful use of a police insignia on a motor vehicle, according to the arrest report. The report lists him as homeless.

Perrymond was transported to Jackson Memorial Hospital for evaluation and booked into the Turner Guilford Knight Correctional Center in Miami.

No bystanders or police officers were injured, Miami Beach police spokesman Ernesto Rodriguez said in an email on Sunday night.

As of mid-afternoon Sunday, 72 people had been arrested in Miami Beach over Memorial Day weekend, mostly for minor drug charges and other misdemeanors. The number of arrests was slightly more than the 63 arrests recorded at the same point last year.

Sunday night’s crash wasn’t the only car-related incident over Memorial Day weekend. Early Saturday morning, a tourist was seriously injured in a hit-and-run incident around 4 a.m. near 20th Street and Liberty Avenue. As of Sunday afternoon, the victim remained in critical condition and police were still investigating the incident, Rodriguez said.