After a wild car chase with a sweaty, dancing suspect, KC police find a surprise in the trunk
Police responded to a strange call Wednesday night that involved a possibly high-on-drugs driver racing through yards, almost striking pedestrians and nearly hitting a Church’s Chicken building.
At one point, officers even saw him dancing in the car. But that was before things got even stranger.
The man wasn’t the only thing in the car wriggling around, police soon learned.
The whirlwind of events began about 7 p.m., when officers received a call about a suspicious person possibly high on PCP driving recklessly in the 5000 block of East 39th Street.
As they arrived, they saw a 37-year-old man dancing in the passenger’s seat of a yellow Chevrolet Monte Carlo.
The officers instructed him to get out with his hands up.
Instead, he scooted across to the driver’s seat and sped away.
Of course, police followed. They wanted to protect the public from the dangerous driver as quickly as possible, they later noted in their report.
The man’s vehicle swerved onto a sidewalk, nearly hit the chicken restaurant, sped through a stop sign at 40th Street and Denver Avenue, and continued west toward Vineyard Road. At one point, the man threw something out his passenger window.
He blew through a series of stop signs until he pulled onto the shoulder of Bruce R. Watkins Drive just south of Linwood Boulevard. By then, the car had lost a front tire.
The man got out of the car and lay on the pavement. He was sweating profusely and talking gibberish, according to the police report.
Police sent him to Truman Medical Center — where he refused to be treated — before he was taken to a holding cell.
Meanwhile, back at the Monte Carlo, other officers searched the vehicle for evidence.
In the trunk, they found a surprise — a 2-foot-long python inside a glass container.
City animal control workers took it away.
To reach Glenn E. Rice, call 816-234-4341 or send email to grice@kcstar.com.
This story was originally published June 18, 2015 at 3:44 PM with the headline "After a wild car chase with a sweaty, dancing suspect, KC police find a surprise in the trunk."