A handcuffed man in the back seat of a police cruiser in Blacksburg was able to get away in the car.
Blacksburg Police Chief Jamie Ham tells us officers were called to a home on Wilbur Street for a report of a domestic dispute.
An intoxicated man was arrested and put in the back of the cruiser, Ham says. Officers then went back inside the home to interview a woman. When they looked outside, the cruiser was gone.
The vehicle was found behind a nearby home and the man climbed back into the back seat, an incident report states. The suspect was apparently able to slide through a partition in the glass of the car while handcuffed behind the back.
Investigators are looking into how he was able to get through the sliding partition and why the glass didn’t lock.
The suspect, George Alan Balthaser, 42, now faces a grand larceny charge, in addition to criminal domestic violence, according to officials.
The police cruiser was not damaged during the incident.