WEST JORDAN, Utah – Unified Police Department officers chased down and captured a suspect who allegedly stole a car Wednesday, and the dramatic takedown was caught on camera.
West Jordan resident Tim Tabor said it was a surprise to witness such an event.
“You know, you think of the cops show, ‘bad boys, bad boys’, they’re wrestling him down—only it’s odd to see it happen right on your front porch,” he said.
Joe Mcelhaney said the car was stolen from their driveway.
“My wife came out and started our Expedition, to warm it up and take our kids to school, and I came out to start my truck and saw the Expedition backing out of the driveway,” he said. “And it kind of took me a second to get my thoughts, hey how come my car is leaving?”
Mcelhaney jumped into his car and followed the suspect. Lt. Justin Hoyal of the Unified Police Department described the chase.
“The suspect hit the victim’s truck with his Expedition then veered off and hit a tree,” he said. “After the collision, the suspect got out on foot and began running through the neighborhoods, another citizen saw the suspect running and began following him and called police and gave us an indication to where he was and where he was going.”
Police tracked the suspect to the area of 6659 South 3095 West, the home of Tabor.
“I went upstairs to get dressed for the morning, and my wife came in to the bedroom and said, 'it’s just going down on our porch,'” he said.
The police arrived, and a K9 unit pulled the suspect down. The capture was caught on surveillance cameras, and the footage can be viewed in the video above.
“That’s when the K9 unit came into the frame and pulled him down, they wrestled him down on the porch and drug him off into the snow and arrested him,” Tabor said.
The suspected car thief, Justin McCaskill, was booked into the Salt Lake County Jail. He has a criminal record in Utah and California.
