Port Orchard police are looking for a man seen on video Wednesday ramming a stolen car into a patrol vehicle in the Goodwill parking lot to make his getaway, despite efforts by officers to block him to keep him from fleeing.

By the end of the video, posted to the streaming service Streamable and filmed by an unidentified bystander, the stolen car struck at least one other nearby car before speeding off.

Port Orchard Police Chief Matt Brown said car thefts are spiking in the city — as they are across Kitsap County and elsewhere. With new limits restricting how officers can pursue suspects, officers had attempted to stop the suspect from fleeing by boxing him in, knowing they could not chase him if drove away.

“It didn’t quite work out the way we wanted,” Brown said. “He was able to get away, but we know who he is and intend to pick him up at a later time.”

Police were called to the Goodwill, 1700 Mile Hill Drive, at about 9:50 a.m. after receiving a call about an occupied stolen car. Three officers responded and attempted to box in the driver.

What followed, as shown in the video, is the suspect repeatedly striking one police car — a statement from the department said the driver actually struck two police cars as well as two other cars in the parking lot, before escaping.

The crimes for which the driver is suspected — third-degree assault, hit and run and possession of a stolen car — do not qualify as offenses for which officers can pursue, Brown said.

Officers can pursue drivers if they have strong evidence that the person committed certain serious violent offenses, but third-degree assault does not count.

“Even that assault is not enough for us to chase him,” Brown said.

Officers from multiple agencies assisted Port Orchard police in tracking the suspect over the course of the next several hours, the department said in a statement.

Brown said the video of the incident was dramatic, but he appreciated that nobody was injured.

It was a stroke of bad luck as five vehicles parked at Jalan LP 1A/2 Lestari Perdana, Serdang near here were damaged as the ground beneath the cliff it stood on gave way this afternoon.

Assistant Superintendent II of the Serdang Fire and Rescue station Saharudin Abdul Razak said it received a report on the incident of apparent soil subsidence at about 6.38 pm, but it did not involve any victims.

According to him, the five vehicles were parked in front of a car workshop and the distance between the cliff that started to collapse and the workshop was seven metres.

“The rain at the time of the incident caused the drain to burst and the five cars sank to a depth of five to six metres.

“Following that, the area was cordoned off to the public before the matter was handed over to the Subang Jaya Municipal Council for further action,“ he told Bernama when contacted.