Wasilla officer nearly hit by fleeing theft suspect

WASILLA — A police officer trying to apprehend an alleged shoplifter almost got run over in the Fred Meyer parking.

Officer Rick Manrique, spokesman for the Wasilla Police Department, said officer Christian McCormick responded to the store shortly after 2 p.m. Tuesday. Store security had spotted a man trying to leave with a few hundred dollars worth of merchandise.

He said McCormick got to the store just as security was following the man out and tried to stop him. But the shoplifter had different plans.

“She tried to make contact and the guy fled in his car and she had to move to avoid being run over,” Manrique said. It was definitely a close call. “It got her attention, there’s no doubt.”

He said McCormick did what most officers would do and made sure she got a good look at the fleeing vehicle’s license plate.

“She got it correct, it matched the description” of the vehicle paired with the license plates in police databases, he said.

Police have a number of options for criminal charges in such a situation. There’s obviously the theft, but then there’s reckless endangerment, failure to stop at the direction of a police officer, even felony assault or assaulting a police officer.

Manrique said he’s not sure which on that laundry list of potential crimes police will choose to file. He described the incident as, “that sort of reckless conduct that takes a relatively modest crime and can quickly raise it to a serious felony assault.”

It’s also not the type of thing officers like to see happen, even though it is a distinct possibility whenever they roll up on a suspect driving a car. In a lot of ways, cars are the most common, and possibly the largest, deadly weapons police encounter.

“It’s every bit as good as a gun or anything else,” Manrique said.

He said the investigation is ongoing and, unlike a lot of cases, officers have a lot to work with.

“I’m confident we’ll have him identified and confident he’ll be charged. When he’ll actually be apprehended will probably be a matter of putting a warrant out,” Manrique said.

A lot of times, he said, people who act this way aren’t the type to have a permanent address. Officers often find the address on file for a person is no longer at the place the person is living. Sometimes two or three address changes are out of date.

Still, it’s really just a matter of time before the person is in a car pulled over for speeding or involved in a ruckus at the bar. And when his name is checked against police databases, that warrant is going to show up. That’s the thing about the law. It’s patient.

“It’s just a matter of waiting,” Manrique said.

Contact Andrew Wellner at andrew.wellner@frontiersman.com or 352-2270.