CHICAGO — A nude woman lying in the street stole a Chicago police squad car, ran over an officer with it and then crashed it Monday morning, Superintendent David Brown said at a news conference.
Police received a call of a woman in the street unclothed, Brown said. When police tried to see what was wrong and help the woman, she charged and assaulted an officer, got in the squad car and drove off.
The officer was hospitalized for injuries to a leg and a cut to the head, the superintendent said.
The woman crashed and was arrested, Brown said.
According to surveillance video of the incident viewed by the Tribune, a woman was seen for a couple of seconds standing outside the passenger side of a red minivan that was in traffic at Jackson Boulevard and Kostner Avenue on the West Side.
The woman ran across the street to a dark blue SUV. She approached the vehicle on the front passenger side and the SUV drove away from her, the video shows.
The woman appeared to run alongside the SUV and open the passenger door as it drove off, the video shows. The momentum of the fleeing SUV appeared to cause the woman to fall in the middle of the intersection.
By then, a marked Chicago police SUV with its blue emergency lights flashing arrived on scene as the woman was on the ground, the video shows.
The officer appeared to calmly exit the SUV and walk toward the woman, who got up.
She walked toward the officer, then walked past him and, with no or very little resistance, got into the driver’s seat of his SUV, the video shows. The officer grabbed hold of the woman’s arm as the driver’s side door remained open for a couple seconds, the video shows.
The woman then put the car in reverse, knocking the officer to the ground. The officer appeared to either get run over by the car or pushed by the car behind another vehicle that was in traffic, the video shows. The police SUV’s driver’s side door was damaged when it struck the back of that other vehicle, and the woman sped away from the scene.
According to a media alert, officers responded to a call of shots fired about 9:50 a.m. There they were “confronted” by a 34-year-old woman who took control of a squad car.
The officer was taken to a hospital where he was treated and released, the alert said.
The woman drove away from the area while hitting multiple vehicles, the alert said. She was eventually arrested and taken to Stroger Hospital in an unknown condition. Charges are pending.
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