On Saturday, Philadelphia police identified Friday night a man suspected of kidnapping and kidnapping the family of a pizza delivery driver, captured by dozens of officers after a high-speed police chase.
Police identified the man as Marcel Jenkins, 33, of Strawberry Mansion. He is said to have been behind the wheel of a car fleeing in a chase, which ended shortly before midnight after accidentally driving through Franklin Square, on the border of Center City and Northern Liberties, just one block from the headquarters of the city police department.
A man allegedly attacked a pizza boy with his family inside, abandoned the vehicle, hijacked another and drove Philadelphia police on a high-speed chase through the I -95 and shallow streets. Police say he even walked into their headquarters parking lot and let them go.
Jenkins was dragged from the vehicle by numerous police officers around 11:15 p.m., Philadelphia Police Department Captain Nicholas DeBlasis said officers had to use their stun guns to subdue the suspect. .
Prosecutors later charged Jenkins with three counts of first-degree kidnapping, two counts of first-degree car kidnapping, second-degree assault on a police officer, five counts of misdemeanors and other charges related to the Friday evening.
A spokesman for district attorney Larry Krasner said Jenkins is being held on $ 750,000 bail and will undergo a court-ordered mental health assessment.
The man later identified as Jenkins also ran on Interstate 95 for a while before continuing through the shallow streets. At one point, the suspect even entered the parking lot of the police headquarters, made donuts and gave the middle finger to officers, DeBlasis said.
NBC10’s SkyForce10 was live and followed throughout the chase, which lasts about 20 minutes before ending up in the park.
The pizza delivery man and his family were not injured. They were not in the vehicle that was involved in the police chase, police said.
A pizza deliveryman making a stop near North Broad Street and Erie Avenue in North Philadelphia made his worst nightmare come true. Someone kidnapped him and kidnapped his wife and two children, according to police. NBC10 reporter Drew Smith has the story of the kidnapping before the suspect drove police to chase the city.
The initial abduction and abduction took place around 8:30 p.m. during a stop by a delivery man at one of the City View pizzerias. The pizza man got out of his car near North Broad Street and Erie Avenue, and that was when the pirate jumped.
But the pizza delivery woman and the two young children, ages 2 and 4, were still in the car.
Police eventually found them unharmed two hours later.
While officers were still searching for the vehicle hijacker after the hijacking, they received a call about an accident at the intersection of 21st and Spring Garden streets, DeBlasis said. The suspect had apparently killed a woman before getting out of the first car, threatening to shoot her and then take off with his car, the captain said.
Officers quickly located a second vehicle that had allegedly stolen the suspect, and that was when the chase began.
He crossed the Old City, sometimes heading in the opposite direction to one-way streets and for a brief period on Interstate 95. At one point, two police vehicles collided with each other as they chased, DeBlasis said.
The chase eventually ended in Franklin Square, near the police headquarters, where the man plunged into the snow before officers got out of their cars, raided him and took him away.
Despite the chaos, no one was injured, DeBlasis said.
“This defendant was very brazen. We are very lucky with the result, “he said.