A Florida man took deputies on an unusual ride back to headquarters when he allegedly stole an ambulance and then accidentally drove it to the sheriff’s station.
Late Saturday night, just before midnight, a deputy with the Columbia County Sheriff’s Office came to the aid of medics in Watertown, Florida, located about halfway between Tallahassee and Jacksonville. The medics were attending to a man described in a sheriff’s office press release as “experiencing an altered mental state and possibly under the influence of drugs.”
The man they were treating, later identified as 35-year-old Stanley Williams, somehow managed to gain access to the ambulance and took off, the sheriff’s office said. The deputy then got into his vehicle and followed in hot pursuit. He contacted other deputies to inform them about the situation as well.
Within a few minutes, the suspect made a wrong turn and headed straight for the Columbia County Sheriff’s Office Operations Center. Williams appears to have driven the ambulance across the operations center lawn and then brought it a halt right in front of the front door.
At that point, he seemed to realize he had nowhere else to go and, as “Inside Edition” described it, he practically “fell out of” the ambulance and onto the lawn by the sheriff station’s main entrance.
Cops Chase Stolen Ambulance to Sheriff’s Office: Sheriffwww.youtube.com
Williams was immediately taken into custody “without further incident,” the press release said. He was then taken to a nearby hospital for further evaluation. He has since been charged with grand theft and fleeing and eluding.
During the brief chase of about three miles or so, Williams allegedly hit a curb with some force, causing damage to an ambulance tire. The press release also noted that the operations center property suffered “minor cosmetic damage to the lawn,” but otherwise nothing — and nobody — was hurt.
“It’s not every day a pursuit ends at our front door,” Sheriff Mark Hunter said about the incident. “This just goes to show that we never know what we will encounter from one moment to the next. I’m glad nobody was hurt and the suspect was not able to pose a greater risk to our community.”
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