Pekin, IL - Handcuffed Teen Steals then Crashes Squad Car
PEKIN, Ill. -- A handcuffed teenager told police he was just
trying to get home and get to bed when he stole and crashed a squad car after
he was arrested for leaving the scene of an earlier accident.
"We don't have a lot of empty (jail) beds here, but we found one for him,"
Tazewell County Chief Deputy Dick Ganschow said.
Police say 17-year-old Joshua Hall of Manito was belted in the back seat of
the squad car when he somehow wriggled free, crawled through a small sliding
door into the front seat, then drove away in handcuffs before crashing through
two fence rows, a gate and into a row of trees.
"This is the kind of thing that you can joke about when it's over and no one
ends up hurt, but this is a very serious incident that could easily have ended
badly," Tazewell County Sheriff Robert Huston told the Pekin Daily Times.
Hall was first arrested on suspicion of leaving the scene of an accident and
illegal consumption of alcohol by a minor after losing control of his car,
crashing through an electric fence and landing in a ditch early Thursday, police
said.
He walked home, where police found him and took him back to the crash scene.
Because Hall had injured his hand in the crash, a deputy bandaged the wound then
cuffed Hall's hands in front of his body instead of behind, Huston said. His
hands were then secured in a leather transport belt, the procedure when
prisoners are cuffed that way.
When the deputy got out of his car to retrieve Hall's insurance card, the
teenager slipped out of the transport belt and a seat belt, squirmed through the
tiny door and sped away, Huston said.
"The weird thing is I've never known anyone to go through one of those. The door
is there to allow communication. ... He's a pretty small person and had to be
pretty agile to do it," Huston said.
After crashing about a mile from his first accident, the 5-foot-7, 115-pound
teenager was arrested again on charges of escape, aggravated possession of a
converted vehicle, failure to wear a seat belt, reckless driving and another
count of leaving the scene of an accident.
Hall was in Tazewell County Jail in lieu of $25,000 bond Friday.
"We don't regard the deputy as negligent in any way," Huston said. "He did
everything he was supposed to do."