He led police on a chase. He was afraid they would take away his dad’s truck, cops say.
A Miami man is in Florida Keys jail after police say he led a deputy on a car chase through Islamorada Wednesday morning.
When Leonel De Jesus Sarmiento, 25, did pull over, he told a Monroe County Sheriff’s Office deputy, “I didn’t want my dad’s truck taken away,” according to an arrest report.
The chase began at 10:15 a.m. when Sarmiento passed Deputy Martin Digrius, who was parked on the side of U.S. 1 at the south end of the Snake Creek Bridge on Plantation Key. The speed limit is 45 mph, and Digrius said in his report that Sarmiento was driving his Dodge Ram pickup 59 mph.
Digrius turned his patrol car lights and sirens on and followed the truck. Sarmiento stopped at the intersection just south of the bridge because the light turned red, but drove away once it turned green, the report said. That section of U.S. 1 is typically congested because it bottlenecks from two lanes to one.
But Sarmiento reached 60 mph and kept driving with Digrius behind him. About a mile down the road, Digrius turned around to drive north.
“As the truck turned in front of me, the driver looked in my direction and raised his hands to his shoulders and then continued driving,” Digrius said in his report.
Sarmiento then made a left turn onto a residential street by San Pedro Catholic Church at mile marker 89.5. He finally pulled over on Ojibway Avenue, according to the report.
Digrius ordered him out of the truck at gunpoint, he said.
Sarmiento is in county jail in Plantation Key on a felony count of fleeing and eluding police and a misdemeanor count of driving without a valid driver’s license. His bond information was not immediately available.
This story was originally published November 21, 2019 at 5:52 PM.
