A couple of Florida cops hitched an unexpected ride when a suspect they had stopped sped off with one officer trapped in his car and another unable to let go of the vehicle.
One officer is heard on body cam footage yelling the patrol car’s unit number, “He’s taking off Eustis 77 is in the car!”
The scene played out over the weekend in Eustis, located about 40 miles northwest of Orlando.
In a police report reviewed by Breitbart News, police said they made the stop early Saturday morning on suspicion that the suspect Shakoi Donovan, 28, was driving under the influence when they spotted his silver Infiniti weaving over a yellow line.
After pulling Donovan over, two patrol officers approached the vehicle and eventually asked Donovan to step out of the car.
When he allegedly did not comply with repeated requests to get out, they opened his car door and reached toward Donovan to physically remove him.
However, his vehicle was still running.
At that moment the suspect took off, speeding away with a female officer inside the car, pinned between Donovan and the steering wheel, according to the report.
The second officer who also trying to get Donovan out was dragged by the vehicle for fifteen feet, “sending him tumbling across the S. Eustis Street asphalt, barrel rolling multiple times,” the police report said.
That officer was treated for injuries, as was the female officer. She was able to eject herself from the speeding vehicle after traveling with the driver about the length of a football field. She was found lying in a nearby intersection by another officer called to the scene, the report stated.
Cops searched for the suspect for two hours. Donovan was eventually apprehended.
A list of charges against Donovan include attempted murder of a police officer, aggravated battery on a law enforcement officer, and resisting arrest with violence, according to news outlets.
The weekend incident was not Donovan’s first run-in with the law, according to court records cited in the police report. He was previously arrested on charges of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon in May and was also arrested on burglary and battery charges in 2022, among other arrests within Lake County, Florida.
Donovan was still in jail as of Friday, the New York Post reported, and is due in court on Aug. 24.
Breitbart contributor Lowell Cauffiel is the best-selling author of the Los Angeles crime novel Below the Line and nine other crime novels and nonfiction titles. See lowellcauffiel.com for more.
