From the Florida Highway Patrol
This morning at 2:00 AM, the Florida Highway Patrol received reports from an American Medical Response (AMR) Supervisor who advised he had come upon a pickup truck, later determined to have been stolen, that had crashed on the southbound Interstate 75 exit ramp to westbound Interstate 4.
The supervisor, a 38-year-old Groveland man, encountered one man who immediately fled down the roadway embankment, and then the supervisor encountered a second man standing in the roadway.
With this encounter, the man jumped on the side of the AMR Chevy Tahoe and would eventually climb fully into the vehicle. The AMR supervisor was then able to open the door and escape without injury as the man drove off with the Tahoe.
After carjacking the vehicle, the suspect sideswiped a Nissan Altima further along the ramp, resulting in a minor crash. The suspect would continue to Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard, where he would be spotted by Hillsborough Sheriff’s Deputies, who gave chase but lost sight of the vehicle.
A short time later, an in-car camera system aboard the Tahoe alerted AMR staff that a crash had occurred at 02:09 AM and had also taken a photo of the suspect in the vehicle. As a result, the Tahoe was located at 3720 Martin Luther King Boulevard, crashed and abandoned inside a fenced-in grass lot.
Anyone with information regarding this incident or the identity of the carjacking suspect is asked to call *FHP (*347) or Crime Stoppers at **TIPS.
