Handcuffed man steals police car, radios about key


January 11, 2012 at 9:39a.m.

Handcuffed man steals police car, radios about key

KOUTS, Ind. (AP) — Police in northwest Indiana have found a police cruiser they say was stolen by a handcuffed man who subsequently radioed for help in finding a key to unlock himself.

Porter County Sheriff’s Sgt. Larry LaFlower says police found the Kouts cruiser this morning “wrecked and submerged in water” in southern LaPorte County. The suspect, 22-year-old William Francis Blankenship, wasn’t with the car. LaFlower had no more details.

Police say Blankenship somehow escaped from the back of the vehicle and drove it away after he was arrested on drug charges in Kouts, a small Indiana town about 50 miles southeast of Chicago.

LaFlower says the officer who arrested him was the only one on duty at the time.

He didn’t say if loaded guns left in the vehicle were still there.