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DC man arrested, accused of ramming stolen car into police cruisers in Taco Bell drive thru
A DC man is under arrest, accused of ramming a stolen Hyundai into several police cruisers while sitting in a Taco Bell drive-thru. Police say he stole a car before ramming it into several Marlow Heights police cruisers.
WASHINGTON - A D.C. man was arrested in Prince George’s County Friday night accused of ramming a stolen car into police cruisers in Taco Bell drive-thru.
Dramatic video obtained exclusively by FOX 5 shows a man being taken into custody at the restaurant in Branch Avenue in Marlow Heights. Several police cruisers were damaged by the suspect, whose name has not yet been released.
One was totaled after the man driving a stolen 2011 Hyundai Tiburon ran into the officers. One officer had to be taken to the hospital.
"He kept his foot on the accelerator. We were telling him take your foot of the accelerator put the car in park, turn the car off he wouldn’t. You could hear him revving up the motor, revving up the engine and during that time officer Wyndham was still pinned in his vehicle," said Lt. Moses Edwards with the Marlow Heights Special Police.
The officer who was injured was treated and released.
A woman in the passenger seat told cops that the suspect also hit a blue sedan with a father and his 6-year-old child inside said to be ok.
"She jumped out and immediately put her hands up and said I’m not part of this," Edwards said.
The car was stolen from right outside a home in Southeast D.C.
"When I got up yesterday morning and came outside to my car, there was no car.
The owner didn’t want her face on camera but says she’s been carjacked before. But this time, the thief was able to break in and start the car without her keys – part of that nationwide trend of Hyundais and Kias getting stolen.
"It’s unfortunate but I kind of feel like people need to get jobs and work for whatever they get instead of taking whatever they can that’s materialistic and it’s unfortunate the woman didn’t realize she was in a stolen car," she told FOX 5.
Marlow Heights Police Chief John Conklin telling me the suspect has prior arrests, including for carjacking.
Car thefts have surged across the area this year.
"It’s up to the state’s attorney and the judges to prosecute and punish them for the crimes they are committing. Without the punishment, it’s going to continue," Chief Conklin said.
Four of the Marlow Heights’ small police department’s eight vehicles were damaged in the incident. Half their fleet now has to be either repaired or replaced.