TAMARAC, FLA. (WSVN) - A multi-county police chase has ended after two desperate and armed suspects terrorized drivers, and one tried to flee by swimming in a canal and breaking into a home.
Police responded to a report of an armed carjacking of a white Lexus at the 12800 block of North Bayshore Drive in North Miami, early Wednesday afternoon.
Soon after, a dramatic chase ensued that went all the way into Palm Beach County and came to a stop in Tamarac, at around 3 p.m., after the chase wound its way back down to Broward County.
Most of the chase was caught on camera by 7 Skyforce, where the subjects were seen weaving through traffic, even at one point going against traffic.
Toward the end of the chase, at Commercial Boulevard and the Florida Turnpike overpass, the passenger in the stolen car, holding a rifle, tried to carjack another driver in a silver car. When the driver refused to open the door, the subject gave up and returned to the Lexus.
The car thieves took off and, in the area of Commercial Boulevard and Rock Island, the driver of the stolen Lexus could be seen getting out of the vehicle and pointing a gun at the driver of a white Tesla.
The armed man took over the Tesla and fled in reverse, leaving his accomplice on foot, who tried to run to the passenger door of the Tesla but tripped. That second male criminal was eventually detained after a short foot chase with deputies.
The driver tried to flee in the Tesla, by going forward between two law enforcement cruisers but ended up rammed by a police pickup truck. Still, the chase wasn’t over.
The driver first seemed to want to surrender, as he threw himself on the ground and spread his arm out, but then he sprang up and ran, sprinting through some bushes, across the road. He then took off his shoes and pants and dove into a canal in a residential neighborhood.
He swam to the other side and ran through the neighborhood, startling a duck before running into a random home at Northwest 54 Street in Tamarac, where he barricaded himself.
The driver eventually surrendered to police after barricading himself in the home for 10 minutes.
He came out with his hands up, only wearing his underwear, and walked backward toward the police, who quickly detained him.
Gisela Taveras, the owner of the home the suspect ran into, said she was in her garage sewing when the suspect came in. Speaking in Spanish over the phone, the 71-year-old said she told him to get out, but he ignored her and went inside her kitchen where he grabbed some juice.
“I was scared because he was in the house,” she said.
She ran out of her house and flagged down a deputy who told her to go to her neighbor’s house and stay inside.
Meanwhile, Gigi lives in the neighborhood and was watching the chase on TV as it unfolded live.
“I happen to get up out of my bed, and I see the pursuit on the news,” she said.
She said she was shocked to learn he was hiding in a home just a street away from where she lives.
“And I see the guy running, and it looked like my neighborhood,” she said, “and I kept saying, ‘Is this my neighborhood where I live?’ And then I see him swim across the canal, and then I seen him run in back of the houses … and then my dog started barking, and then when I looked up there was the helicopter over my house.”
After the second man’s capture, he was put on a stretcher to be taken to the hospital. The extent of his injuries is currently unknown.
Deputies have confiscated the weapons, and towed away the cars involved but have not identified the criminals. They are, however, expected to face a judge on Thursday.
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