Suspects flee after crashing stolen Jeep into Clearwater home

CLEARWATER (FOX 13) - Two people are wanted by police after crashing a stolen vehicle into the side of a home on Mary L Road, and then taking off Saturday afternoon.

Clearwater police and Clearwater Fire & Rescue came to the home where a Jeep slammed into a parked van and then went through the wall of one of the home's bedrooms.

Police say the driver, a woman, lost control of the Jeep and careened onto the property of Pastor Christopher Bennett. It then hit Bennett’s van, which was parked at the corner of the house, and went through the home's outer wall, landing on Bennett’s bed.

Bennett told FOX 13 News he was cleaning out the van he had just purchased when he heard the Jeep’s tires squeal. He tried to jump out of the way, but was partially pinned by the Jeep and debris from the crash.

 “I thank God for it and think for a moment I could have been gone,” Pastor Bennett said.

He says by the time he realized what was going on, the people in the car had run off. Bennett said he thinks they were teens.

“That's the part that bothered me that they didn't have the heart to even think about, was I alive or dead?” Bennett said. “They just took off and that bothered me more than anything else. That all they wanted to do was get away and they didn't care.”

But as a pastor, Bennett says he forgives the people who nearly killed him.

He was taken to the hospital to be checked out. His body is sore from the trauma, but thankfully he doesn't even have any cuts or scratches.

“These young children need to be held accountable. But sometimes I wonder what's missing with them. What's missing that they would think hard enough to just leave? Leave a person that's injured?” Bennett said.

Police say the Jeep was reported stolen after the crash. The fire department's Technical Rescue Team came to shore up Bennett’s home.