A driver tried to escape police in Seattle this week with a dramatic, movie-like getaway in a stolen car, police said.
On Wednesday, Sept. 17, at about 12:20 p.m., the Seattle Police Department spotted a stolen Audi Q5 near 10th Avenue East and Roanoke Street and started chasing it, Detective Brian Pritchard said, according to The Seattle Times.
Traffic camera video from the Seattle Department of Transportation showed the car driving on the wrong side of the road on the University Bridge to get around stopped cars, according to a clip shared by Fox 13 Seattle.
The driver then went through the guard barrier and jumped across the drawbridge gap while it was still closing, the footage also shared by King 5 Seattle showed.
Several patrol cars chasing the vehicle stopped in front of the broken barrier, and officers got out to see what was happening.
At the time, the bridge spans were almost but not fully lowered over Portage Bay, The Seattle Times reported.
Detective Pritchard said police would never try such a jump themselves. “It’s not the movies,” he said. “We’d never do anything like that.”
The stolen car was later found abandoned near Pasadena Place Northeast and Northeast 42nd Street in the University District, The Seattle Times added. The car had damage underneath.
The suspect escaped, even though police had called in a helicopter that afternoon, the newspaper reported.
Neither the Seattle Department of Transportation nor the Seattle Police Department immediately responded to requests for more information.
