06/17/18 Fresno, CA – Woman Arrested For Vehicle Vandalism Handcuffed In Backseat Of Squad Car – Another Woman Steals The Squad Car – Chase – Crash Into Pole – Charged With Kidnapping / Auto Theft

www.fresnobee.com/

A woman was arrested Sunday night after she stole a Fresno police car with a suspect handcuffed in the back seat, only to crash it into a pole.

Police said she was being booked into Fresno County Jail on charges of stealing a police vehicle and kidnapping. It’s possible she was under the influence of drugs, police said. She was not named.

Lt. Carl McKnight detailed the incident:

At around 7 p.m,. officers near Abby Street and Olive Avenue in central Fresno were flagged down at a used car lot by a man who said a woman had scratched up his vehicle. Officers found the vandalism suspect at the nearby railroad tracks and brought her back to the victim’s location to have her identified.

As officers were speaking with the victim, another woman walked up and began going through the vandalism suspect’s belongings that were sitting outside the squad car. The woman told the officers she was a friend of the vandalism suspect and would take her things to her house, but the vandalism suspect said she did not know the woman. Officers told the woman to leave the area, which she did.

Then she came back and while officers were talking to the victim, the woman jumped into the squad car with the suspect handcuffed in the back and drove off.

Officers chased the car a few blocks to near the intersection of Glenn and La Salle avenues where the woman crashed the car into a utility pole.

The woman was arrested. No one was injured.