Police: Suspect tried to flee in chief ’s car
Piedmont police say they have arrested a man on suspicion of knocking someone unconscious at a store and trying to get away in the police chief’s vehicle.
Authorities received a report about an unconscious man at Ace Hardware on Grand Avenue at about 4:20 p.m. Friday, the Piedmont Police Department said. Witnesses told police that someone had struck an older man from behind, causing him to fall to the ground unconscious, before running into the garden center next door.
Responding officers said the suspect, who refused to obey their commands, “showed objective symptoms” of being under the effects of a drug. Police pepper-sprayed and tased the man, but he removed the Taser prongs and fled, forcing his way into a home on the 400 block of Sunny Slope Avenue, where he threatened a resident, the police department said.
The man then ran onto Valle Vista Avenue, where Piedmont Police Chief Jeremy Bowers — who had responded to the report — confronted him. The man got into Bowers’ police vehicle and tried to drive away, but the chief, along with police officers and a security guard, forced him from the vehicle and arrested him, the police department said.
Piedmont police identified the man as 42-year-old Willie Gomer and said he was arrested on suspicion of assault, elder abuse, battery of a police officer, carjacking and burglary. Gomer was on parole for car theft, robbery kidnapping and multiple parole violations, the police department said.
The older man was taken to a hospital, but his condition was unknown as of Saturday, Piedmont police said. An officer was also injured but was treated at a hospital and released.