A police cruiser was damaged — and the sergeant inside the vehicle was unharmed — early Wednesday, officials said, when suspected car thieves fled from officers after being confronted in Northeast Philly.
According to Philadelphia Police Department Chief Investigator Scott Small, the incident happened as officers responded the the area of Frankford and Rowland avenues just after 2 a.m. on Wednesday.
At that time, he said, as officers approached the area, about three or four men fled the scene in three separate vehicles — an Acura, a Honda and a red sedan.
As they fled, Small said, the driver of the Acura struck the passenger side of a police cruiser.
“One of the vehicles, in its desperation to get away, struck the front passenger side of a sergeant’s marked police vehicle,” he said.
The police sergeant inside the vehicle at the time it was struck, Small said, was unharmed.
“The sergeant is very, very lucky, because he was struck by these vehicles that were fleeing at a high rate of speed. But, he was not injured,” said Small.
Following this crash, police lost the three vehicles, said Small.
But, later in the evening and about a half-mile away, at the intersection of Holmes Circle and Ashton Road, officers found two of the vehicles that had fled — the Acura and the Honda — after they were involved in a crash and had struck a traffic pole.
The vehicles, he said, were abandoned.
But, the red sedan that fled the scene, he said, was unaccounted for.
“That vehicle is no where to be found at this time,” he said.
Also, Small said, along the 8000 block of Rowland Avenue, officers found a vehicle that had all of its doors open and may have been targeted by the suspected car thieves before they were interrupted by police.
Small said no arrests have yet been made and investigators were reviewing footage from surveillance cameras in the area as the investigation in this incident remains ongoing.
NBC10 is working to learn more.
