Video: Carjacker Rams NYPD Cruiser to Escape Arrest
By John Annese
Source New York Daily News
A desperate thief punched the gas of a carjacked SUV and rammed an NYPD car out of the way as he evaded arrest in Midtown, police said Thursday.
Cops responding to a call for help showed up at W. 56th St. and Broadway around 4:30 p.m. Wednesday, where the 30-year-old driver of the carjacked Audi SUV told them the suspect hopped into the car on the passenger side, said he had a gun, and drove off.
Police soon found the vehicle near the corner of W. 55th St. and Broadway.
Two cops approached the SUV from either side and opened its doors. Body cam video shows one of the cops reaching for the thief, and yelling: “Put your hands up! Don’t f---ing move!”
After a brief struggle, the carjacker hit the gas.
He rammed the Audi SUV into an unmarked NYPD vehicle that had pulled in front of him and pushed it out of the way, the video shows.
Then the Audi sped off as the cops tried to chase it on foot.
A few blocks away, the crook abandoned the Audi and escaped into the Columbus Circle subway station, said police.
An NYPD sergeant who was behind wheel of the unmarked car rammed by the SUV was taken to Bellevue Hospital for hip pain, cops said.
Around 45 minutes later — 5:15 p.m. Wednesday — cops responded to a second carjacking on W. 36th St. near Seventh Ave. in Midtown, where they found a 44-year-old livery driver, minus his vehicle.
The driver said he was sitting in a black Infiniti SUV when a man approached, asked if he was a cab driver, then brandished a box cutter.
The robber ordered the cabbie out of his vehicle and drove off, cops said.
Police have no information connecting the two carjackings, and the suspects in both remain at large, an NYPD spokesman said.
Cops are asking anyone with information to call Crime Stoppers at (800) 577-TIPS.
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