Troopers say Steven J. Lazaro-Ocampo was speeding and running red lights. Five people in the car reportedly begged him to pull over and let them out, but he refused.<\/p>\n
TAMPA, Fla. \u2014 An 18-year-old driver was arrested after state troopers said he ignored passengers’ pleas to pull over during a pursuit in Tampa.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Just before 3 a.m. Tuesday, the Florida Highway Patrol (FHP) said the driver of a white Nissan, later identified as Steven J. Lazaro-Ocampo, was going east on Interstate 4 at about 85 mph in a 55 mph zone. After confirming the speed on a radar, a sergeant who was conducting traffic enforcement in the area “pulled out and overtook” the car.<\/p>\n
State troopers say Lazaro-Ocampo cut off another vehicle and took the Orient Road exit. That’s when the sergeant activated his emergency lights and sirens, initiating a pursuit.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Lazaro-Ocampo reportedly started speeding away in the Nissan and was running red lights. Eventually, state troopers say he got back on eastbound I-4 before going southbound on Interstate 75.<\/p>\n
As the sergeant got close to a PIT, several people put their hands out of the window from the passenger windows. FHP said Lazaro-Ocampo then turned onto the right shoulder, stopped in the grass, got out and ran away.\u00a0<\/p>\n
State troopers say they were able to find Lazaro-Ocampo while he was running in the bushes along the side of I-75.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Five people who were sitting in the passenger seats left the Nissan and followed commands. They reportedly told state troopers that they were begging Lazaro-Ocampo to pull over and let them out, but he refused.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Lazaro-Ocampo is now facing multiple charges, including aggravated flee to elude, false imprisonment, possession of a controlled substance without a prescription and resisting without violence.\u00a0<\/p>\n
According to FHP, Lazaro-Ocampo also had an active warrant for robbery out of Polk County and previously fled from troopers in January in Polk County.\u00a0<\/p>\n
There was no damage to any cars, and no injuries were reported.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Troopers say Steven J. Lazaro-Ocampo was speeding and running red lights. Five people in the car reportedly begged…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":216533,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[135,137,136],"class_list":["post-216786","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tampa","tag-tampa","tag-tampa-headlines","tag-tampa-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/216786","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=216786"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/216786\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/216533"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=216786"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=216786"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=216786"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}