According to reports, a man wanted by North Carolina police hijacked a TV news car before colliding head-on with a police cruiser.
Marcus Brown, 19, was one of the four men in rural Pittsboro on the run from police when he approached a reporter and photographer on Saturday with a wad of cash in exchange for a ride.
“We said that those were both news units and he couldn’t ride with us because he didn’t have a station ID, that was really an excuse to hope that he would get away from us,” reporter Keenan Willard said in a broadcast segment. “He seemed to agree, he started walking away,” Willard went on. “And he just lunged into my car, jumped in the front seat and peeled out of there up [Highway] 64, just took off. We were both in shock.”
Brown was involved in his second automobile pursuit of the day when a nearby officer gave chase. This one lasted about five minutes before he slammed the news car into a police car.
The TV station was in the area, covering the manhunt for Brown and the others, who had abandoned a car during a high-speed chase earlier that day. The four men are all from Jacksonville, Florida, and were allegedly speeding at 94 miles per hour on a highway with a posted speed limit of 65 miles per hour when a cop attempted to pull them over.
After a chase, the four men fled the vehicle, resulting in a lockdown of the area with police presence. WRAL reported that all of the suspects were apprehended over the weekend.
According to the TV station, Brown was charged with stealing the car, fleeing, and possessing a weapon of mass destruction.
Adrian Lowery, 24, and Caleb Sheffield, 19, were also detained along with an unidentified minor.
