WATCH: Cops Nab Alleged Cell Phone Bandits After SUV Rolls Over Mid-Getaway
NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) -- A police pursuit involving a sports utility vehicle was caught on surveillance camera as it rolled down Webster Avenue in the Bronx Wednesday.
Sparks flew as the SUV skidded down the block, rolling over and eventually coming to a stop near 188th Street in the Fordham section.
A few seconds later, a man who was in the SUV but climbed out of the wreckage ran down the street. He put his hands up, realizing he had been caught.
Several officers tackled him to the ground.
"That's kind of like karma to me," Alicia Ciera, employee at a nearby T-Mobile store, told CBS2's Valerie Castro. "It's karma because you did something you wasn't supposed to do and you thought you was going to get away with it and now you get into a crash like that."
The two men allegedly stole four cell phones from the store Ciera works at on East Gunhill Road before crashing the SUV during their getaway. She says they wore black ski masks over their faces.
Police could be seen picking up the ski masks at the crash scene.
"You could only see their eyes," Ciera said. "And then he just looks at me straight in the eye, gives me eye contact, doesn't say nothing, puts the phone in his pocket and walks out."
Another employee says the men were casual about the crime, and didn't run away until they got outside.
"They were literally there for a good few minutes trying to yank the phones out," employee Jessie Abreu said.
Police say both men were taken into custody.
The employees say they estimate the four phones stolen were worth about $3,300.