MIAMI BEACH, FLA. (WSVN) - Police said a Tesla driver who refused to stop caused plenty of bedlam on South Beach’s iconic Ocean Drive, and it all came to a smashing stop, leading officers to make an arrest.
David Thomas appeared before Miami-Dade Circuit Judge Mindy S. Glazer, Thursday afternoon.
“He fled and then crashed his car. There’s probable cause,” said Glazer.
Police said Thomas, 42, is the driver who caused who caused vehicular mayhem, Wednesday night, and it’s why this man with a New York driver’s license was checked into the Turner Guilford Knight Correctional Center.
“You were arrested for fleeing and eluding a police officer,” said Glazer.
According to the arrest report, the chaos on wheels started on a busy section of Ocean Drive, when Miami Beach Police tried pulling him over for “improperly driving … on the bicycle lane.”
The report further states the suspect briefly stopped his Tesla, but “the vehicle then fled from officers northbound on Ocean Drive. The driver began to drive in a reckless manner, causing the tires to screech, and began to drive [at] a high rate of speed, demonstrating a complete disregard for the safety of pedestrians, as well as the bicyclist occupying the bicycle lane. It should be noted the area is highly populated with pedestrians,”
When Thomas zoomed by the Betsy Hotel and historic residential buildings, the arrest report states, he ended up “losing control of his vehicle and crashing into a parked vehicle.”
That vehicle was an Infiniti sedan seen with considerable damage on Ocean Drive’s eastern sidewalk.
Fortunately, outside of minor injuries that Thomas suffered, nobody was hurt.
The demolition derby-type drive resulted from a botched traffic stops has been seen several before on Ocean Drive.
7News covered the wild aftermath of a June 23, 2023 wreck where, police said, a driver on the run plowed into barriers before he took off running. Officers caught up with him at the nearby Loews Hotel.
On July 10 of the same year, a fiasco unfolded when, detectives said, a motorcyclist zoomed away from an attempted stop, then wiped out, crashing into patrons who were trying enjoy a nice dinner.
No one was seriously hurt.
“It was a simple traffic stop, now you’re under arrest for a hit-and-run. You struck my vehicle, you also hit other people,” a witness is heard saying in bodycam video.
In the case of this latest Ocean driver, the outcome was similar. Glazer spelled it out for Thomas.
“It’s fleeing and eluding at a high rate of speed, which is a third-degree felony,” she said. “I’ll leave a bond set here at $2,500. Have a good day, sir.”
Thomas has since bonded out of jail.
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