DAVIE, FLA. (WSVN) - Four people have been taken into custody after several law enforcement agencies were led on a pursuit through the streets of Broward County.
Hollywood Police cruisers could be seen chasing after a black Ford F-150 at around 12:30 p.m., Thursday.
7SkyForce HD flew over the scene where a man could be seen waving his arms out of the back window of the truck.
Other law enforcement agencies, including Davie Police, joined in on the pursuit of a suspect allegedly wanted for aggravated battery on a law enforcement officer.
According to the Broward Sheriff’s Office, deputies were at a Hollywood home running surveillance on a carjacking suspect from a case in Miami-Dade County.
As they were arresting the suspect, deputies said the pickup truck moved in and rammed a silver undercover BSO minivan.
The pickup truck left the scene, and that is when the chase began, deputies said.
“When the pickup truck fled from the home in Hollywood, there were four subjects inside,” BSO spokesperson Veda Coleman-Wright said. “During the pursuit, two of those individuals got out or were let out or jumped out, a male and a female.”
A man wearing a blue shirt inside of the truck at one point placed a white bag in the bed of the truck. It remains unclear what was inside the bag.
He was later seen bailing out of the vehicle in the middle of the roadway near 47th Avenue, just north of Sunrise Boulevard, and was taken into custody.
During the chase, according to deputies, one of the suspects threw a high-powered rifle out of the window.
The truck could then be seen avoiding slow traffic by driving on medians, and at one point it nearly struck a pedestrian on a sidewalk.
An orange Nissan was also struck by the truck, as the suspect tried to get around it to elude officers.
The truck continued into Sunrise and Plantation before the pursuit ended in a parking lot of a Wells Fargo corporate building off of Orange Drive in Davie when a black law enforcement SUV struck the truck using a pit maneuver.
“I heard a crash, and I thought, ‘Oh my! Maybe someone hit the Dumpster or something,'” witness Laurence Leavy, who is also known as “Marlins Man,” said. “I looked out, and I saw two cars. I saw two black cars.”
Aerial footage showed officers with guns drawn surrounding the vehicle as the driver and passenger in the vehicle came out with their hands over their heads.
The suspects then proceeded to lay on the ground before being handcuffed and placed into law enforcement cruisers.
“He got out and laid face down waiting to be handcuffed,” Leavy said, “That’s what I saw, and then, when they started handcuffing him, it looked like there was a scuffle. It looked like the first officer started hitting the guy in the head, and then, another guy came over and just started beating him up.”
Surveillance footage from the building showed what Leavy described, which involved officers and what appeared to be a BSO deputy.
“They knew that it was over at that point, and they just kinda gave themselves up and tried to get down before it got worse for them,” witness David Martin said. “I don’t know if he was resisting or not, but they had to put a little muscle into it to get his arms behind his back.”
The conflict arose after, investigators said, words were exchanged between the driver and authorities.
“When it comes to law enforcement and when they’re trying to apprehend violent known felons, and if there’s any type of resistance, use of force will be used, but as I said, this is under investigation,” Coleman-Wright noted.
Officials found a purse and other miscellaneous items inside the pickup truck, which has since been towed out of the parking lot.
BSO has launched an internal affairs investigation because of the rough arrest following the end of the pursuit.
The names of the four people taken into custody have not yet been released.
It remains unclear what charges will be filed in this case.
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