A Merced man driving a stolen 20-foot box truck led officers on a chase through Point Reyes Station on Saturday.
The suspect’s low-speed joyride took him from San Francisco to San Anselmo, then on to Highway 1 via Sir Francis Drake before he made several laps around the core of Point Reyes just after sunset, pursued by three California Highway Patrol cars and an airplane. After it blew out two tires, the lopsided truck’s rims scraped along the road, creating a cascade of sparks and carving the pavement. The truck ran off the road on A Street, just past the gas station, and the driver, whom officers identified as 21-year-old Dylan Keanu Wilson, bolted toward the pharmacy. Officers caught up to him on foot and arrested him without incident at 9:30 p.m.
The truck’s owner, Cathy Schoop, later stood by as highway patrol officers waited for a tow truck. Ms. Schoop, frustrated but matter-of-fact, said she had just bought the 2022 Isuzu in February for her business, Annie’s Hot Dogs, which operates several food carts in San Francisco. A coffee cart, an ice cream cart and the day’s cash were in the back when it was stolen, she said, worth about $40,000 in total.
One of Ms. Schoop’s employees had been loading the truck in Golden Gate Park on Saturday afternoon and left it running. Before the employee knew it, Ms. Schoop said, someone snuck into the driver’s seat and took off. Another employee followed the truck across the Golden Gate Bridge to the Red Hill Shopping Center in San Anselmo, where the driver parked and left the truck alone for several minutes. Soon, C.H.P officers arrived, and Ms. Schoop drove down from her home in Fairfax.
Ms. Schoop said she pleaded with the officers to seize the empty truck, but because they couldn’t confirm that it was stolen, they waited until the driver returned and sped away from the parking lot, headed toward West Marin.
“They could have gotten my truck back undamaged, but they said, ‘It’s not in the system yet. How do we know that it’s really your truck?’” Ms. Schoop said. “They completely screwed me over with their lackadaisical attitude.”
C.H.P. spokesman Darrell Horner told the Light that the San Francisco Police Department entered the truck into a stolen vehicle database as it was parked in San Anselmo. But, he added, “As long as we have all the articulable facts of the crime, we can make an arrest for a stolen vehicle not entered into the system.”
Mr. Wilson, a construction worker, has a record of similar offenses. Last May, he fled a traffic stop and led officers on a 100-mile-per-hour chase near Paso Robles. He drove his red Volkswagen coupe off the highway, crashed and lost a C.H.P. helicopter, avoiding capture. He was later sentenced to two years’ probation in California Superior Court. In March, he was arrested again in Merced and charged with evading an officer and failure to appear on a felony charge. Records show he was released from Merced County Jail on March 31.
Last weekend, the highway patrol charged him with two felonies connected to his theft of the vehicle, and two additional misdemeanors: evading a peace officer and driving with a suspended license. He had outstanding warrants for violating probation, failure to appear in court, and two drug misdemeanors. C.H.P. said it did not suspect drugs or alcohol were involved in last weekend’s incident.