Hill District Chase Suspect Arrested After Hitting Several Parked Cars & Trees
HOMEWOOD (KDKA) – A suspect fleeing police in the Hill District left a wake of destruction in his path Thursday afternoon.
Derrick Ingram, 44, of Homestead, has been charged with trying to flee from an alleged robbery attempt and putting a number of people in harm's way.
The getaway car ended up on Roberts Street just off Centre Avenue, but the relatively short trip was a fast one full of destruction - plenty of dents on a number of cars, including a police car.
It started with an attempt to steal items from a Family Dollar store across the street from the Zone 2 Police Station. A passerby alerted a policeman who was leaving the station of the robbery attempt.
A woman was treated in an ambulance after the getaway car slammed into her car.
Then, the car sped down the sidewalk.
"It just kept driving on the curb, on the sidewalk. I thought it was a movie," eyewitness Pat McDonald, of the Hill District, said.
Tom Hall and David Tillman had to jump on a ledge to avoid serious injury or worse.
"I mean he came about right where you're at," Hall told KDKA's Harold Hayes. "Right about right here and we had to jump up here."
"If we'd have got caught off guard, he'd have ran right over us," said Tillman. "He'd have crippled us or killed us. We had to jump up here to get out of the way."
Laierra Ruffin works nearby.
"I sit in a corner so I can see everything, so I just see something out of the corner of my eye and I'm looking," she said. "It's on the other side of this white car. It's on the sidewalk. So I come out and I thought he went up the hill, but he kept going. I could see the tree. I heard a big boom. I didn't know he hit anything. I thought it was just the tree, but it was unbelievable how fast he was going on the sidewalk."
By the time the suspect crashed for the last time, he tried to run but police caught him.
"We did have to deploy a Taser," said Public Safety spokesperson Sonya Toler. "But we do not believe that Taser was actually effective. We think it got caught up in some of his clothing."
Ingram faces charges including retail theft, flight to avoid apprehension, escape, resisting arrest, reckless endangerment, aggravated assault, hit and run, and conspiracy. He was taken to the Allegheny County Jail.
Police say he was driving with a suspended license and there was also warrant out for his arrest in the state of California.
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