Kamel Matthews
Police said several arrests were made in a case involving a stolen car and an incident in which suspects jumped into the car of a female motorist.
An officer checked out a black Ford Escape at 1706 Chamberlain Ave. on Saturday. A neighbor told them the vehicle was parked at an abandoned house on Wilcox Boulevard with the car alarm going off. The officer then discovered that the vehicle was stolen.
The officer walked around the house and noticed the vehicle parked behind it with a man in the drivers’ seat. Two other men were observed walking around the vehicle before they too entered the vehicle.
The officer placed the occupants at gunpoint and told them to get on the ground. However, the driver then sped off toward an alley. The officer ran back to his patrol car, where another officer pulled up at the same time as this was occurring.
The officer noticed that several occupants exited the vehicle and began to run away, so police began to chase those individuals. The officer grabbed the closest male and put him in handcuffs. Police said they patted him down and put him in a patrol car.
The other males ran into the woods on N. Holtzclaw, and then ran back out of the woods and banged onto the back of a silver Lexus on the road. The driver told police she thought she may have hit them, and did not know the men.
Police said one male jumped into the front passenger seat, and then Kamel Matthews, 18, and two others got into the back seat. However, they were placed into custody after one officer pulled in front of the car and another officer placed the males at gunpoint. All were then put in handcuffs.
The driver said the males ran down the road and jumped into her car through unlocked doors and through windows. She said she immediately shut her car off. She said the men in the car did not say anything to her “because police were there so quickly.”
Police said another male ran off in another direction.
The victim of the car theft arrived and said the Ford Escape was worth $20,000.
Matthews and the rest in custody were charged with theft of property over $10,000, and Matthews was charged with evading arrest and aggravated criminal trespass. The others involved are juveniles.