As reported in “Car catches fire after crashing through wall“, Fourways Review, week ending 9 January, a woman crashed her vehicle into a wall at the corner of Homestead and Shepherd roads in Bryanston on 2 January.
Colonel Anesh Maharaj, acting head of communications for the Douglasdale police, recounted the events leading up to the accident.
According to Maharaj, the woman had tried to shoplift from a store in Fourways Mall but was caught in the act and the Douglasdale police were called to the store. The police officers took the woman into custody and transported her to the Douglasdale Police Station, where they proceeded to question her in an interview room.
While being questioned, the woman asked to use the toilet. Maharaj said that since both the officers were male, one of the officers left the room to find a female officer to escort the woman. While the officer was out of the room, the woman grabbed her car keys, which had been lying on the counter, and ran out of the room. The other officer, who had been in the room, ran after her but she was already driving out of the station in her car, which had been parked in the main yard of the police station. The woman sped along Douglas Drive towards Randburg followed by police officers.
At the corner of Homestead and Shepherd roads, just metres away from the Randburg Police Station, the woman lost control of her vehicle and crashed into a wall. Maharaj said the woman’s vehicle caught alight. The car doors were locked so one of the officers used his firearm to break the glass of the driver’s window and pulled the woman out of the burning car.
Maharaj said charges of evading and resisting arrest have been added to the woman’s original charge of shoplifting.
