The U.S. Marshals Violent Fugitive Task Force captured a 17-year-old wanted for armed robberies and kidnapping in Lake and Cuyahoga Counties after a violent crash Thursday morning.
Marshals spotted the teen on Interstate 90 near Martin Luther King Jr. Drive around 10 a.m. and attempted to pull him over. Instead, he took off.
“Shortly thereafter, we lost sight of the vehicle,” said Alex Rutter, a deputy U.S. Marshal. Moments later, a call for a crash came across the radio. The teen had smashed the minivan he was driving into the guardrail in front of a home on East 141st Street and Idarose Avenue. He was found hiding under the porch of a home nearby.
Authorities said the 17-year-old robbed a Rite Aid Pharmacy in Willowick and a Circle K in Willoughby on Dec. 16 at gunpoint. He was with two other masked teens — a 16-year-old who was caught that evening and a 14-year-old who was later arrested.
The teens live in Cleveland, but committed the crimes in Lake County.
“That can become a common thing, people think that if they get outside their home where they’re known and where they’re located, they can commit these types of crimes and end up getting away with it,” Rutter said. “But as we’ve seen here, hopefully we are able to find and apprehend these people.”
According to the U.S. Marshal's office, approximately 3,000 violent fugitives were arrested by the task force in 2017.
