A woman trying to evade the police deliberately crashed into two police cars while making her get-away and almost smashed into another two police vehicles.
On Friday, Berkeley police spotted a 1996 Honda Passport that fit the description of a vehicle used in a March 18 robbery at a grocery store in Berkeley, according to a police department press release. Police attempted to stop the car in the 1500 block of Stuart Street, but the driver did not comply with their orders.
“The driver then put the vehicle in reverse and rammed into one of the police cars,” according to the press release. “After pulling forward, the driver again put the car in reverse and struck a support column of the apartment building staircase, narrowly missing a police officer. Still in reverse, the driver struck the apartment building and the same police car a second time. In the continued efforts to get away, the driver sped over a lawn and collided with yet another police car, making it inoperable. Two other police officers were nearly struck as well. As the driver fled east on Stuart Street, she then aimed her vehicle at a responding police car, nearly crashing head on.”
Police eventually caught the driver after she abandoned her car on California Street near Dwight Way and tried to flee on foot. Police arrested Vanessa Williams, 24 years old, from Berkeley. She was taken to Santa Rita Jail where she is being held in connection with ten violations, including assault with a deadly weapon, hit and run, resisting arrest and violating probation. No one was injured in these incidents.
