TWO FLORIDA DEPUTIES KILLED IN CAR CHASE
Two Palm Beach County sheriff's deputies who had tried to stop a stolen vehicle on a rural road in the Everglades were killed when they were struck by a fellow deputy's patrol car early Wednesday. The driver of the patrol car was injured, authorities said.
Scores of officers combed the region looking for two suspects in the car theft, and later said they had one man in custody. The deputies had put spikes on a road that punctured the stolen car's tires. But when they ran to take the spikes off the road they were struck at about 1:45 a.m. by a canine patrol vehicle that was pursuing the car thieves, Sheriff Ric Bradshaw said.
"They probably did not estimate the K-9 was coming at the speed that it was," Bradshaw said at a news conference. "You're talking about a road that is absolutely pitch black," Bradshaw said. "Everybody involved in this was doing their job. They were doing it the right way but this is a dangerous job," he said.
The stolen car stopped at the scene after its tires were punctured. The patrol car that struck the deputies slid into a canal. Two men suspected of stealing the car were initially believed to have fled into sugarcane fields between Pahokee and Belle Glade, and at least 75 officers and several canine units spent five hours combing the fields. However, that focused search was ended and detectives pursued other leads, with deputies driving back roads in the area.
Police later had one person in custody but weren't saying if he was one of the two suspects, Bradshaw said. He said authorities also wanted to talk to a 19-year-old male, saying only that he was a "person of interest." The chase began after a Belle Glade resident called police to report that a neighbor's car was being stolen. Deputies who responded saw the car and pursued it.
The sheriff identified the dead officers as 13-year veteran Donta Manuel, 33, and Jonathan Wallace, 23, who had been with the sheriff's office for 1 1/2 years. The driver of the patrol car that hit them was treated for a concussion and a broken arm, Bradshaw said. His police dog and a trainee in the car were uninjured.
The dead deputies are among several Florida law enforcement officers killed this year. A Broward County deputy was killed Nov. 7 while taking a suspect to court; the suspect was charged in the slaying. Another Broward officer was killed Aug. 10 while looking for stolen vehicles, but no one has been arrested.
In September, a Miami-Dade County police officer was killed by a man who ambushed him and three other officers with an assault weapon. A suspect was killed by officers hours later. In January, a Jackson County sheriff's deputy and the sheriff's wife were killed in a shootout in the Panhandle, and a Florida Highway Patrol trooper was shot to death when he tried to make a traffic stop in central Florida.
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