If I had to make a list of “worst vehicles to use to escape the police,” the Grumman LLV mail delivery truck would be somewhere just below tractor and forklift. And yet one Florida man apparently went for it anyway, and the results were 100 percent predictable.
This rather depressing event happened near Daytona Beach, Florida. The Flagler County Sheriff’s Office writes in a press release that it received a call on Saturday from Volusia County saying a carjacking suspect had hopped onto Interstate 95 in a stolen mail truck. Per West Palm Beach-based news site WPTV, the suspect had threatened a mail carrier in the town of Holly Hill with mace before stealing her vehicle.
Officers from that sheriff’s office found the suspect on the highway, and exited their vehicles to deploy stop-sticks. Then the man behind the wheel of the Long Life Vehicle allegedly tried running into the officers. From the Flagler County Sheriff’s Office:
At the time FCSO Deputies were on the side of I-95, the suspect intentionally swerved and drove the mail truck directly toward the deputy. After thankfully missing the deputy, the suspect then swerved to the other side of the road in an attempt to intentionally strike a different FCSO Deputy attempting to deploy Stop Sticks.
Then came the most predictable part of the “high speed” chase in the ridiculously top-heavy, antiquated Grumman:
At that point, the back tire of the mail truck struck the Stop Sticks. The suspect lost control of the vehicle and over-corrected causing the truck to crash into a guardrail at mile marker 280 and flip.
Here’s a video of the crash:
You can see that the end of the video that the 29 year-old mail truck driver, having been yanked out of the postal vehicle’s cargo area and now laying on the grass next to a bunch of USPS bins, admits to being under the influence of a number of drugs.
This is a bad idea, and one that landed him in a boatload of trouble.
Per the Flagler County Sheriff’s Office:
The driver, Jesse Estep, DOB 3/24/1990, is being arrested by FCSO for Grand Theft Auto, Aggravated Fleeing and Eluding, and two counts Aggravated Assault on a Law Enforcement Officer. He will be transported to the Sheriff Perry Hall Inmate Detention Facility once medically cleared by the hospital. He faces charges in Volusia County also.
It’s sad, man, because, well, who steals a Grumman LLV? The vehicle’s “Iron Duke” four-cylinder sends 90-ish horsepower through a three-speed slushbox trying to give thrust to a vehicle with the aerodynamic properties of a barn. I guess if the guy found a motor pool of mail vehicles, I suppose he could have blended in and maybe gotten away?