Wild footage shows Iowa police officer clinging to suspect’s car during high speed chase
Officer Patrick McCarty suffered broken back after traffic stop escalated
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Wild video footage captured an Iowa police officer clinging to the roof of a man’s car as he drove at speeds of up to 50 mph during a traffic stop that escalated into a full-blown car chase.
Police in the town of Carroll stopped Dennis Guider, Jr, of Illinois, for a traffic violation, only to discover that he had an active warrant in Illinois for forgery.
Body camera footage released last week in court showed Officer Patrick McCarty approaching the window of a red sedan during the 5 March stop.
“I hate to be the one to tell you this, but it sounds like you’ve got a warrant out of Illinois,” he told Guider and a female passenger.
The suspect then shoved the woman out of the driver’s seat and drove away slowly. Officer McCarty drew his gun and jumped on the hood of the vehicle while ordering Guider to slow down.
He then accelerated with the officer still on the hood, leading officers on a chase in which he hit reported speeds of up to 50mph.
During the chase, Officer McCarty fell off the roof of the car and broke a vertebra in his lower back.
Guider was sentenced to up to five years in prison on Thursday for the felony of serious injury by vehicle, after pleading guilty and avoiding an eluding arrest charge.
The Illinois man, who is Black, told an Iowa court he feared for his life and was afraid when the white police officer jumped on his car with a gun drawn.
“I feared for my life after the officer pull(ed) out his gun and jump(ed) on the hood of my car,” he wrote in a February letter.
The officer in the case admitted in a hearing last week that he hadn’t been trained to jump onto the hood of a moving vehicle.
“Each situation is different,” Officer McCarty said. “It certainly didn’t play out the way I intended.”
“Officer McCarty was polite and respectful when he approached the car, was treating everybody with dignity, and then you kick your girlfriend out of the car and you take off,” District Associate Judge Joseph McCarville said during sentencing, the Des Moines Register reported.