A 50-year-old man was arrested in Davis Thursday night after intentionally ramming his pickup truck into businesses in Berkeley and Albany and leading Albany police and California Highway Patrol officers on a 60-mile pursuit, police reported.
Craig Stanley Clark of Santa Rosa was booked into Santa Rita Jail on suspicion of assault with a deadly weapon, felony vandalism, felony evading and drug possession charges.
Albany Police first began getting calls about an incident at the Albany Target at 9:14 p.m., according to an Albany Police Department press release. Clark drove a 2017 Chevrolet Silverado 1500 into the Chevron gas station at 1399 San Pablo Ave. in Berkeley, the Target store in Albany, at 1057 Eastshore Highway, and an ampm gas station in Albany, according to Albany police and Berkeley police radio traffic reviewed by Berkeleyside.
No one in the area was injured, Lt. David Belman of the Albany Police told Berkeleyside, despite Clark driving into the front doors of the Target store three times. Police have not found any indication that his actions were tied to “any act of targeted violence.”
One shopper at Albany Target described, on social media, rushing to the back of the store to avoid being hit by the driver. “A man in his very large truck rammed into target 3x while i was at the check out and i booked it to the back exit then hopped the fence onto the train tracks,” Twitter user “ro” posted in the early hours of Friday.
According to Albany police, the suspect in his truck narrowly missed two patrons walking into the store before fleeing the scene. He was located driving on the 900 block of San Pablo Avenue and allegedly led police on a chase from eastbound Interstate 80 to Crockett.
Police said they stopped following him at this point due to safety concerns on the Carquinez Bridge, but CHP units from Solano County picked the pursuit back up on the other side of the bridge. CHP officers eventually took Clark into custody in Davis without incident, police said.
His bail is set at $60,000 and he will be arraigned 9 a.m. Monday at the East County Hall of Justice in Dublin.
Correction: The original story said one of the crash locations was a Shell gas station. The correct location was an ampm station across the street on San Pablo Ave.
