ST. LUCIE COUNTY, Fla. (CBS12) — A traffic stop over a broken headlight ended with stop sticks, a PIT maneuver, pepper balls, and a felony arrest Thursday night, according to the St. Lucie County Sheriff’s Office.
Captain Andrew Bolonka said a deputy patrolling the 9600 block of South Ocean Boulevard on South Hutchinson Island tried to pull over a pickup truck with a headlight out. Instead of stopping, the driver made a U-turn and began spinning doughnuts in the road. Other drivers had to swerve to avoid a crash.
The truck stopped briefly. When the deputy pulled in behind it, Bolonka said the driver made another U-turn, cut across all lanes of traffic, and accelerated toward the patrol car. The deputy had to swerve out of the way, and the moment was captured on the deputy’s body-worn camera.
“He goes from a headlight out to an aggravated assault with a deadly weapon when he turns around and basically charges the deputy’s vehicle,” Bolonka said.
The driver then sped north on South Ocean Boulevard toward Fort Pierce. Bolonka said the deputy couldn’t keep up but kept the truck’s taillights in sight while radioing its location. The sheriff’s office aviation unit, Air Two, was already flying and picked up the truck from above, guiding deputies on the ground. Detectives from the Special Investigations Unit were nearby working an unrelated case, and they joined in.
Near Binney Drive, a sergeant deployed stop sticks and flattened the truck’s tires. Bolonka said the truck was going about 40 mph at that point, in an area where he believes the speed limit is 30 to 35 mph. The driver kept going, with sparks coming off the truck, through the roundabout and onto Seaway Drive.
A detective pulled in behind the truck and, once it was safe, performed a PIT maneuver that stopped it. A second vehicle pinned the truck in near the Cumberland Farms on Seaway Drive, Bolonka said.
The driver ignored repeated commands to get out, so deputies fired pepper balls into the truck. Bolonka said the driver then got out and was taken into custody without further incident. No one was hurt.
The sheriff’s office identified the driver as Joshua Gallagher, 37, of Port St. Lucie. He faces charges of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon, possession of a controlled substance without a prescription, possession of drug paraphernalia, and resisting arrest without violence.
Bolonka said investigators don’t know why Gallagher ran. He said the drug charges may have played a role but cautioned that was speculation. He also said he did not know whether Gallagher had any prior history with the sheriff’s office.
Bolonka said that stretch of the island is largely empty past the condos, and light traffic helped. With the aviation unit overhead, he said, deputies could track the truck without chasing it closely and pushing the driver to take bigger risks, then move in when they could stop it without endangering the public.