A parked police cruiser was hit and flipped during a pursuit early Monday along U.S. 301, where officials say a man smoked crack and taunted officers before he sped off in his van.
A 24-year-old man from Morocco, Hamza Qabeqba, started the chase by driving backward in front of a convenience store on Lime Avenue at 1:30 a.m.
A Sarasota police officer was about to walk into the 7-Eleven when he saw Qabeqba driving wildly and ordered him out of the gray Plymouth van at gunpoint.
Police say Qabeqba told the officer, "I will run you over," turned up the stereo in the van and hit the gas, sending the officer diving for cover as Qabeqba peeled out.
Other officers arrived, and Qabeqba swerved around two blockades as the chase turned south on U.S. 301.
He rammed two parked cruisers, smashing one so violently that it flipped. No one was in the vehicle.
An officer ended the chase near the intersection of U.S. 41 by tapping the van with his car to send it spinning.
Qabeqba, charged with almost a half-dozen felonies, is being held without bail in the Sarasota County jail.
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