Pedestrian injured in police chase

AUSTIN (KXAN) - A man in a wheelchair was critically injured after a vehicle involved in a police pursuit Friday morning struck him near the access road off I-35 and 38th Street. The soutbound frontage road of Interstate 35 will remain closed until about 6 p.m. due to the police investigation.

Police said the chase began as a South Austin carjacking in the 2400 block of Cromwell Circle.

Witnesses gave police a description of the car, and they spotted the vehicle around 38 1/2 Street, where they began the pursuit.

Austin Police Department Assistant Chief Sam Holt said the vehicle made a U-turn underneath I-35 near the Hancock Center.

Holt said the vehicle pulled up on the sidewalk near 38 1/2 Street after going southbound on the frontage road, hitting a man in a wheelchair. Police said the man was waiting for a bus.

 

Steve McBride was stopped in traffic on the South bound frontage road of I-35 when when he saw the suspected carjackers run over a man in a wheel chair waiting at a bus stop.

"I saw the guy go flipping head over heels like a leaf in the wind the guy kept on going it was just crazy," said McBride.

The wheel chair was left crumpled at the bus stop. The suspect vehicle then fled and also struck a blue Suburban on 38 1/2 Street and Harmon Avenue, flipping over an SUV with a man and his daughter inside. Police said the two suffered minor injuries.

"The girl was nine or 10 if that," said Jacob Mancha. "The dad was asking what had happened."

Mancha ran to the SUV to help the man and little girl inside.

"I was there struggling with the door to try to help him out," said Mancha.

The suspects bailed from the wrecked car, leaving a semi-automatic handgun inside. One jumped over the railing onto the lower deck of I-35, breaking his leg. Police tazed the other suspect for resisting arrest.

"I just heard him screaming," said Mancha. "I heard him screaming saying he didn't do nothing or something like that I could see the string from the tazer into his body.

It's was a chaotic string of events eyewitnesses are still trying to understand.

"The man who got ran over it was just so senseless," said McBride. 

EMS officials transported three people to University Medical Center Brackenridge.

This incident comes a few weeks after another carjacking on Sept. 4 where two men physically assaulted a driver in Northeast Austin before stealing his wallet and car, according to police.

Police said Michael Ramos, 30, and Joshua Vargas-Ortega, 22, followed the man driving a Chevrolet Blazer, and carjacked him after he pulled over on Chatham Avenue to let out a passenger.

After he described the men to police, they located the suspects and the stolen Blazer shortly afterward. However, police said the two evaded, driving recklessly, when they tried to stop the vehicle.

Police arrested the suspects after the pair abandoned the stolen vehicle, and police said Ramos confessed to the assault and theft - saying the carjacking was his idea.

Ramos is out on bond and charged with the second-degree felony of robbery and evading law enforcement in a vehicle. He is also charged with the state jail felony of unauthorized use of a motor vehicle. He could face more than 20 years in prison and a $10,000 fine.

Vargas-Ortega is in jail and charged with the state jail felony of theft.

Meanwhile, Austin police have said they have no reason to believe the two carjacking incidents are related.

A little more than two weeks ago, a police pursuit ended in a fatal crash after police said the suspect in the chase ran a red light and hit another car.

Austin police said the driver sped through the light at Airport Boulevard and Bolm Road, slamming into the other car and killing the driver on Aug. 31.

Austin police pursuit policy allows for only one chasing officer, one backup vehicle, and a supervisor to be involved in a chase. It is unclear how many officers were involved in the pursuit.

The policy also states officers must use their mobile recording device while in pursuit.  It is unclear whether those devices were used.