Colorado State Police Car Is Stolen & Then Police Crashed It Into Innocent Civilians - # ETH

PUEBLO, Colo. (KKTV) - WARNING: The video at the top of this article contains graphic language and the moment a suspect crashed a stolen trooper’s vehicle and died.

Colorado State Patrol is being transparent about what happened the day a trooper’s vehicle was stolen by a suspect leading to a deadly crash. The state agency shared multiple videos detailing the events that played out on June 20 in Otero County just before 11 a.m.

According to the Colorado State Patrol, troopers were called to assist Otero County Deputies on a “shots fired” call involving the vehicle the suspect was driving.

“In addition, the suspect was reported to have caused multiple crashes and attempted to cause head-on crashes with himself and other vehicles,” CSP wrote in a news release. “Troopers performed a tactical vehicle intervention (TVI) that stopped the vehicle and law enforcement contacted the suspect successfully.”

Video shown to the public on Wednesday showed the suspect in handcuffs in the back of a trooper’s vehicle. The suspect was able to adjust the position of his hands despite being in the handcuffs and climbed into the front of the trooper’s vehicle.

“During the arrest, the suspect gained access to the front of a fully marked Colorado State Patrol vehicle and fled,” the release adds. “Agencies on the scene pursued the suspect in the stolen patrol vehicle and troopers deployed stop sticks further down Highway 50. After hitting the stop sticks, the suspect in the patrol vehicle lost control, crashed into the side of a stopped Commercial Motor Vehicle (CMV) parked on the side of Highway 50 and caught on fire. The suspect was removed from the patrol vehicle and transported to an area hospital. The suspect later succumbed to injuries sustained at the time of the crash. The CMV driver was not injured.”

The suspect was identified as Anthony Alphonso Sanchez III.

The Colorado Bureau of Investigation is handling the investigation. Colorado State Patrol is also investigating internally.

CSP said part of their investigation will include looking into how Sanchez got around anti-theft measures in the vehicle and if the actions taken by the troopers involved aligned with CSP policies and training while also focusing on public safety. Col. Matthew C. Packard said Wednesday that a pair of keys could be seen on the passenger seat of the vehicle once it crashed: he said he is unsure if those keys were spares to the trooper vehicle, but it was “very possible.”

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