#parking

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.

A man is recovering after being run over by an alleged drunken driver who hit him and three vehicles in a Ponce de Leon Avenue parking lot earlier this month.

The victim, Jeffrey Whitmire, and several other people told Atlanta police that an unknown man was drunk inside a restaurant at 736 Ponce de Leon Ave. asking for someone to call an ambulance before going outside and getting in his car Jan. 7, according to an incident report obtained by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Witnesses said they tried to stop the driver because he appeared to be too inebriated to drive.

Surveillance video posted to YouTube shows the driver in a dark gray Jeep Grand Cherokee backing into a parked pickup truck before pulling forward and hitting a white SUV.

Whitmire, who drove the white SUV, ran toward the erratic driver with his arms raised and yelled at him, Whitmire wrote on his GoFundMe page. Both paused for a moment after the SUV was struck. Then, the driver quickly drove toward Whitmire and ran over him.

Whitmire’s body was completely under the vehicle right next to its left-side tires.

The driver stopped, as there was nowhere to turn, which allowed just enough time for Whitmire to roll out from behind the vehicle before the driver started to reverse. Whitmire wrote on GoFundMe that “adrenaline allowed me to roll out the way.”

Whitmire had injuries to his left shoulder, right knee and a hematoma to the back of the head and was taken to the hospital, according to the police incident report.

The driver then struck a third vehicle twice before eventually exiting the parking lot over what appeared to be large stairs.

“I am mobile, however, my leg received an injury that doesn’t allow me to work until fully healed, which is undetermined at this time given the type of work I do,” Whitmire said about his injuries.

A witness told police the driver left a credit card in the restaurant, according to the incident report. The witness said the driver was last seen heading eastbound on Ponce de Leon.