Suspected Car Thief Spider-Mans Through Underside Of Bridge Trying To Escape Police
Being Spider-Man for a day, clinging to walls at dangerous heights, sounds like a lot of fun. But that only sounds fun if it comes along with the Spider-Man's superpowers. As a normal human, holding onto any structure, hundreds of feet above the ground (or water) sounds like a nightmare. A car thief lived that version of my nightmare in San Francisco earlier this month, after being chased by police, ditching the stolen Honda Civic, and fleeing to the underside of the Bay Bridge.
The chase started after the gray Civic was reported stolen in downtown San Francisco, near 8th and Market streets. Once the police found the car, they chased it for 30 minutes, and even deployed a spike strip that slowed the suspect down, but didn't stop him immediately. Eventually, after driving onto the Bay Bridge, the driver stopped, left the car behind, and climbed over the rail onto the crossbeams below. The highest point of vertical clearance between the bridge and the water is 220 feet, which makes me uneasy just thinking about it.
Newly released drone footage shows the thief hanging on for dear life
San Francisco police recently released body cam and drone footage of the chase and the thief's Spider-Man like escape attempt. After the police saw the alleged thief climb onto the crossbeams below the bridge, they sent a drone down to find him. That's where you can see him hanging from one of the beams, with his feet dangling below him at times. Terrifying.
The SFPD shut down traffic on the bridge, brought fireboats and marine units into the bay, and had hostage negotiators on hand to try to bring the suspect back onto the bridge. Thankfully, he gave himself up, likely realizing that it was better to be arrested for theft than to fall more than 200 feet into the water. "After several minutes hiding inside a support beam, the suspect climbed back onto the bridge and was taken into custody without incident," said the SFPD, according to the San Francisco Chronicle.
SFTD took the thief into custody but hasn't released his name, information, nor the charges that he's facing.