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Tampa Police Arrest 3 People After Chase And Crash

WFLA photo by DAVE KRAUT.

A stolen GMC van collided with a white pickup truck and a gold Buick near 17th Street and Hillsborough Avenue Monday morning.

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By VALERIE KALFRIN | The Tampa Tribune

Published: December 31, 2007

Updated: 12/31/2007 01:45 pm

TAMPA – Three people are under arrest after a police chase that ended just after 11 a.m. with a crash near 17th Street and Hillsborough Avenue.

Police spokeswoman Laura McElroy said the chase began when an OnStar Corp. employee contacted Tampa police. OnStar, which provides a vehicle monitoring and tracking service, advised police it had located a stolen vehicle, a silver GMC van, at 5711 Troy Court.

Plainclothes officers staked out the van and followed it to a Citgo station at 34th Street and Hillsborough Avenue, McElroy said. One of the officers approached the van at the gas station, and the driver, identified as Clinton Marshall, 19, of Tampa, tried to run over the officer, she said. The officer fired three shots at the van, and the pursuit began, she said.

From the Citgo, the van went east on Mohawk Avenue, which is one block north of Hillsborough. Marshall and a 15-year-old male passenger bailed out on Mohawk, and Antwan Pleas, 20, of Tampa, took the wheel, McElroy said. Pleas steered directly at an approaching police car, she said.

The officer drove into a fence to avoid a collision, she said.

The gray van then went west on Hillsborough Avenue, with police in pursuit. After the van passed North 19th Street, a tire went flat and Pleas lost control, McElroy said. The van hit and jumped a low concrete median and headed west into eastbound traffic, colliding with a white Toyota Tundra and a gold Buick. The van then rolled on its side, she said.

No one was seriously injured, but the Toyota's occupants, Jorge Hernandez, 48, of Tampa, his 2-year-old son, Carlos, and a female passenger, Waleska Betancourt, 53, of Seminole, were checked out at St. Joseph's Hospital.

The driver of the Buick, Augustine Bautista Jr., 35, of Tampa, was not injured in the crash, police said.

McElroy said police were pursuing the van but did not get close enough to make contact.

Janice Limehouse, 30, and her boyfriend, Tavaris Brown, 32, both of Tampa, were driving east on Hillsborough Avenue when they saw the crash.

"We saw all the lights. It was like a parade or something," Brown said.

A white unmarked police car with its front and rear lights flashing bumped a gray vehicle, Limehouse said. The vehicle jumped the concrete median and ended up in the eastbound lanes. Then a white pickup T-boned the gray vehicle, which struck a gold Buick, Limehouse said.

"I thank God we stopped," Limehouse said.

"Another 30 seconds, it would have been her," Brown said.

Eastbound Hillsborough Avenue is closed between 15th Street and 19th Street. Drivers may want to find an alternate route while the investigation continues.

The charges against the three people in the stolen van have not been announced. The 15-year-old already was serving home detention for auto theft, police said.

Reporter Valerie Kalfrin can be reached at (813) 259-7800 or vkalfrin@tampatrib.com.

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