A 45-year-old woman rammed a police vehicle and a Monroe County Sheriff’s Office vehicle with a stolen truck while trying to flee officers and deputies Thursday, said Bloomington Police Department Lt. John Kovach Friday.
A Bloomington Police Department officer located a stolen red 2001 Dodge Ram 1500 truck in the parking lot of the Speedway gas station and convenience store in the 3000 block of E. Third Street around 2:37 a.m. Thursday, according to Kovach. The truck was reported stolen on the 13th.
The BPD officer pulled up behind the truck and ran the plate to confirm it was the stolen vehicle, and then exited their police vehicle to look inside the truck where a woman matching the description of the woman reported to have stolen the vehicle was sleeping inside.
The officer began to knock on the window to speak with the woman. The door was locked. But the woman, now awakened, put the vehicle in drive and fled. The police officer, with assistance from the Monroe County Sheriff’s Office tried to box the woman in, but the woman rammed both law enforcement vehicles while creating a path between them. Both the police car, and the MCSO vehicle were damaged.
The woman drove the truck through a black chain-link fence on the northside of the lot, but got hung up on the fence, and a small tree. Members of law enforcement then deployed stop sticks behind the truck and as the woman backed up, the tires were deflated. She then fled westbound driving over a sidewalk between the gas station and some apartments. Fluids and oil from the damaged truck were spread on the path she took.
She then drove over sidewalks before getting blocked in by a swimming pool, and at that time, unable to get traction in the grass, and with the truck hung up on a wall on the east side of the apartment complex, officers were able to remove her from the truck. The driver’s side window would not roll up due to crash damage to the vehicle, and the woman was removed through the window.
The woman is being charged with 1 count of criminal conversion, a level 5 felony; level 6 felony theft, 3 misdemeanors for criminal mischief, and 4 misdemeanors for leaving the scene of an accident.
The woman was checked by IU Health Bloomington before being taken to jail.
