Sparks scattered. The rust-red Honda went airborne, careening
down Dowdy Street, a police strobe pulsing in its rear-view mirror.
Officer Joseph Deras pushed the gas, his dog Gus barking
frantically in the backseat. Dust clouded the road; the speedometer
needle jumped to 50.
Gilroy – Sparks scattered. The rust-red Honda went airborne, careening down Dowdy Street, a police strobe pulsing in its rear-view mirror. Officer Joseph Deras pushed the gas, his dog Gus barking frantically in the backseat. Dust clouded the road; the speedometer needle jumped to 50.
Two minutes prior, at 10:59pm that Friday, Oct. 6, Deras defused a teenage girl’s fit, a foster child out too late for her supervisor’s taste. It was delicate work, the kind of thing you wouldn’t see on ‘COPS.’ But that was two minutes ago, before the red Honda darted through a stop sign at Eighth and Church streets, and the chase began.
For a moment, as dust flooded the air, the Honda seemed lost. But as Deras steered onto Third Street, his headlights revealed a wreck: the Honda, smashed into the metal fence that borders Brownell Middle School.
Deras leaped from his patrol car and tackled the driver, crouched near the curb. Five police cars swarmed to the scene; a fire truck and an ambulance followed.
“Don’t go crazy and try to run,” Deras warned the driver, a 17-year-old boy in a mud-splattered sweatshirt, as he stood up for a Breathalyzer test. “My dog’s real hungry.”
The Breathalyzer read 0.161, more than twice the adult legal limit. Paramedics strapped the boy onto a gurney, and loaded him into the ambulance. He didn’t complain of injury, but given the violent nature of the crash, he was taken to Saint Louise Regional Hospital, just in case. He will likely face charges of driving under the influence.
Three passengers seen riding in the car, had already vanished on foot.
