‘No-win situation’: Burglary suspect leads police in wild 2-hour ride across Charlotte

Editor’s note: Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police charged two individuals in connection with Wednesday’s pursuit. Read more here.

Hours after a burglary suspect led police on a two-hour pursuit across the Charlotte area Wednesday, police Chief Johnny Jennings defended his officers for not turning on their blue lights to apprehend the man.

“My goal in this situation is nobody died,” Jennings said during a late-afternoon news conference at Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police headquarters.

“I am happy with the response we had at that moment” not to chase the driver, he said.

Had his officers turned on their blue lights behind the driver, they would not only have violated department policy but possibly “ramped up” the driver to go even faster and put more of the public in danger, he said.

”To be certain and to be clear, the pursuit policy of CMPD is unless it’s a crime dangerous to life, we do not pursue those vehicles,” Jennings said.

CMPD policy was followed “precisely,” he said.

READ MORE: What rules do CMPD officers follow during chases?

The driver stole four cars over the two hours as CMPD and WSOC helicopters tracked the driver, Jennings said. CMPD cars trailed well behind, WSOC aerial footage showed.

Police arrested the suspect after he collided with a driver in Charlotte’s Dilworth neighborhood. Jennings declined to identify the suspect.

The suspect was treated at the scene for injuries and taken to a hospital “for further evaluation,” Jennings said.

The driver will be charged with multiple offenses, including residential burglary, hit-and-run and numerous counts of vehicle theft, according to the chief.

A woman involved in a vehicle theft will also face charges, Jennings said.

At least one driver told a Charlotte news outlet that he tried to stop the man during the pursuit by hitting him with his vehicle, but the suspect still got away.

CMPD said the suspect endangered other drivers by speeding, swerving and otherwise driving erratically along Interstate 77 and busy Charlotte roads. At several major intersections, he blew through red lights and briefly drove the wrong way, WSOC aerial footage showed.

Police said officers never “chased” the driver but instead used Snoopy, CMPD’s helicopter, to track the driver.

Chasing a suspect in such instances is against department policy, Jennings said

No one was injured, police said.

Jennings said the first three cars stolen resulted from auto thefts, not carjackings, and that’s why officers pursued the driver after the fourth vehicle — a black Infiniti SUV — was stolen in Ballantyne.

Police initially thought a person was inside the SUV, Jennings said, and that’s when officers pursued the vehicle.

Jennings, during an earlier interview with the Observer at police headquarters, said it was “appalling” to him that someone “has that much disregard for the safety of our public.”

He called it “a very dangerous ... no-win situation.”

“We were not in this area where we could pursue, based on our policy, until the last time he stole that last vehicle,” he told the Observer moments after the suspect’s arrest.

“In the end, you always keep your fingers crossed, and you hope that it doesn’t end with something tragic,” he said. “Fortunately this did not end with anything tragic.”

The chief said he “was proud of our CMPD response in providing closure without serious injury.”

Home burglary prompted pursuit, police say

The pursuit started about 11 a.m. after a report of a home burglary in the Westover Division, which is an area around West Boulevard, police told The Charlotte Observer.

The man wanted for questioning in the case is suspected of initially stealing a Jeep and then a white pickup truck, police said.

RELATED: How other drivers can stay safe during a police pursuit

Just before noon, WSOC’s helicopter spotted the driver “speeding and swerving” on I-77 near the Clanton Road exit, the station reported.

A blown tire forced the suspect into a Walmart parking lot off South Tryon Street near I-485 in southwest Charlotte.

Aerial footage from WSOC’s helicopter showed the shirtless driver jump out of the pickup and into a gold sedan. The suspect pulled beside a white pickup, and a woman stepped from the truck and ran, the footage showed.

‘It happened so fast’

A woman told WSOC that the driver stole her car at the Walmart lot.

She said she saw the woman leave the pickup before the driver sped away.

“No idea what happened to her,” the woman told WSOC. ”It happened so fast.”

The suspect drove away in the sedan despite a driver in a gray pickup trying to rear-end him to stop him, according to the station’s footage.

WSOC’s helicopter followed the stolen sedan along I-77, onto Nations Ford, Tyvola, Woodlawn and Old Pineville roads in south Charlotte. The car also veered onto South Boulevard and Archdale Drive.

The sedan also wound through the South End neighborhood and along South Tryon Street and Carson Boulevard near uptown. No CMPD cars could be seen pursuing the driver, the station reported.

The car briefly headed into uptown on South Tryon Street before traveling toward I-277 then onto northbound I-77. The car also was spotted on Statesville Avenue near the I-77/I-85 interchange.

The car headed south again, driving down Johnston Road in Ballantyne and into parts of Indian Land, S.C., before returning to Charlotte.

Helicopter footage showed the sedan striking a white Honda at the intersection of Johnston Road and Ballantyne Commons Parkway around 1 p.m. The driver jumped from the sedan and began trying to open stopped vehicles before entering the black Infiniti SUV through the passenger door.

The SUV’s owner, Karyann Curtis, told reporters later she had “no idea” what was happening at the intersection when she heard a “loud explosion” and saw glass flying everywhere. She got out of her vehicle to check on other drivers. Curtis said she then noticed her passenger-side door open and the SUV started to move. Moments later, she realized someone had taken her SUV.

Curtis’ SUV then headed north, winding through parts of SouthPark before ending up in South End and Dilworth, where the suspect’s fate was sealed.

His ride ended in a wreck with a black pickup truck at South and East boulevards.

Moments earlier, a dark gray Toyota Tundra pickup truck hit the stolen SUV from behind several times.

In an interview with WCNC, the unidentified driver of the Tundra said he was “acting on instinct.”

The Tundra has a steel bumper, he said.

”I was like, let me put it to the test,” the driver said.

He hit the SUV at least six times.

”It’s just the adrenaline kicking in,” he said. “It was just everything happened so quick. I was trying to see (that the other driver) not to hit somebody else.”

It’s unclear if the Tundra owner, identified by WSOC as Abraham Nassar, would face any charges. In a tweet Wednesday afternoon, CMPD asked drivers not “to engage this suspect or intervene in the pursuit.”

“All of a sudden I’m hit”

The suspect soon collided with William Kirk, who was driving a black pickup truck at South Boulevard and East Boulevard.

”All of a sudden I’m hit,” Kirk told a Charlotte Observer reporter at the scene. “I stopped, twisted around, that was it.”

“Thankfully,” he said, he wasn’t hurt.

”Just a little adrenaline,” he said about how he was feeling, “but fortunately, I don’t feel anything at this point.”