Suspect captured day after carjacking woman in Sarasota

A Sarasota police officer ended a suspected carjacker’s joy ride Wednesday after a woman was forced from her car a day earlier.

According to the Sarasota County Sheriff’s Office, a woman was walking to her car in the parking lot near the movie theater of the Parkway Collection strip mall around 6:45 p.m. when a man pushed her inside and forced her to drive him.

After leaving the shopping area at University Parkway and Lockwood Ridge Road, deputies said the woman was soon forced from her car on Desoto Road and kept ongoing.

On Wednesday around 3:45 p.m., Sarasota police sported the car and recognized the victim’s Cadillac from the sheriff’s office description then pursued the driver.

“Our officer saw that vehicle and attempted a traffic stop. The suspect vehicle fled from the traffic stop and subsequently crashed here at 42nd Street and U.S. 41 into another vehicle,” said Lt. Robert Armstrong of the Sarasota Police Department.

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Police said the officer only pursued the car for a few blocks before the suspect crashed, the man ended up going to the hospital for injuries. Police said the driver and the passengers of the other car are doing OK.

Sheriff’s deputies have not released the suspect’s name, but they did identify him as the suspected carjacker.