Anchorage police arrested a 29-year-old man early Thursday morning, following a vehicle theft, police chase and standoff with law enforcement.
According to a release from the Anchorage Police Department, an employee with Susitna Services called to report a stolen work truck, after it was discovered missing at 11 a.m. Wednesday. It had been parked, locked, in a vacant lot near Raspberry Road and was last seen at 8 p.m. Tuesday.
At 10:21 p.m. Wednesday, a Susitna Services employee called police “and stated they were behind their stolen work truck being driven in the area of Jewel Lake Road and Raspberry Road.”
APD wrote that they caught up with the stolen Chevy truck at 100th Avenue and the Old Seward Highway. When law enforcement attempted to block the truck, it rammed into a police car, drove onto the curb, over the sidewalk and down Old Seward. No one was injured. Witnesses also called police dispatch to report the vehicle running red lights, police noted.
By 10:40 p.m. police found the vehicle, unoccupied, near Klatt Road and Gambell Street. APD said footprints showed two people ran from the vehicle in different directions.
“The driver was tracked to a residence on the 12000-block of Seashore Place,” police wrote. ” The home was unoccupied as the owner was in the process of moving out. Officers could see that the front door had been kicked in and there was a man inside. Officers made verbal contact with the man who provided the police with a name.”
When the home’s owner arrived on scene, he identified the man as Gordon Adam Thomas, which was different than the name the man provided to police, the agency said. The homeowner told APD Thomas was an acquaintance, but had not been in the home for more than 2 years and didn’t have permission to be there then.
According to police, the man refused to listen to their commands and tried to escape.
“The home Thomas was in was a townhouse-style residence,” APD said. “Thomas attempted to bore through the garage wall into the attached unit. When that didn’t work, Thomas crawled up into the attic and over to the next-door house. The residents of that home were evacuated and they gave police permission to go inside. Thomas was in the process of dropping down into the second home through the ceiling when he realized police were inside. He crawled through the attic and back down into the first residence.”
Thomas was arrested at 12:24 a.m. Thursday. He’s charged with vehicle theft, theft, criminal mischief, assault, burglary, failing to stop at the direction of an officer, providing false information, as well as resisting arrest. At the time of his arrest, he also had two felony warrants out for his arrest because of probation violations.
A female was with Thomas in the stolen Chevy and has not been arrested, although she was tracked to another home on East Klatt Road, where she asked the homeowner to bring her to Walmart. Police said the homeowner did not know what had happened and cooperated with law enforcement.
Video courtesy of Nicholas Bigwood.
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