New Orleans - A Drug-trafficking Handcuffed Suspect Escapes in Police Car and Wrecks Fire Hydrant
 

Officers were busy questioning another
Friday, March 24, 2006
From staff reports
 

A drug-trafficking suspect handcuffed in the back of a police car in an Uptown neighborhood Wednesday night managed to commandeer the car and escape while two police officers were questioning another man, police said Wednesday night.


Police found the car about six blocks away, its rear smashed into a fire hydrant. There was no sign of the prisoner, police said

The two officers, whose names weren't disclosed, were handling a fight at Loyola and Milan streets about 7:15 p.m., when two men pulled up in a black car. The officers, thinking the pair might be part of the fight, patted them down for weapons and found crack cocaine on one of them, police said.

The officers handcuffed the suspect and placed him in the back of one officer's squad car, and then both officers began questioning the other man nearby, police said.

The handcuffed suspect is thought to have somehow managed to slip his handcuffed arms under his legs and to the front of his body, slide the glass partition between the back and front seat of the police car down, get behind the wheel of the car and drive away before police could stop him, police said.

Police found the wrecked car near Constantinople and Dryades streets, about one-third of a mile from where it had been taken.

The other man, who had no drugs on his person and wasn't wanted on a criminal charge, wasn't at the scene when police returned, nor was the car in which the two arrived, police said.

Police did not have the suspect's name.

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