[VIDEO] C7 Corvette Grand Sport Driver Hits the Gas to Avoid Being Carjacked in Florida

As Sheriff Buford T. Justice might say, a man who led police on a dramatic 12-minute chase in Clearwater, Florida and then tried to swim away to elude capture is “in a heap of trouble.”

The man, 27-year-old Kenneth Lunford Jr., faces 31 charges in all, including carjacking, leaving the scene of a crash, DUI with property damage, attempted carjacking, robbery by sudden snatching, and fleeing and eluding.

The chase – which saw Lunford frequently driving on the wrong side of the road, at high speeds, weaving in and out of traffic, driving in the median and emergency lane, running red lights, and more – also included an attempted carjacking of an Arctic White C7 Grand Sport coupe (at the 8:32 mark in the video), whose driver had removed the roof panel and was enjoying a nice Sunday cruise in Clearwater, Florida. Lunford suddenly stops his car in front of the Corvette, perhaps thinking he can get a faster get-away car, but after a brief altercation, the Corvette driver refuses to give up his car and speeds away when confronted by Lunford.

The whole chase was captured on camera by a helicopter manned by the Pinellas County Sheriff’s Office, with the lawmen on the audio urging at one point early on: “We gotta get this guy stopped. He’s crazy, man. He’s gonna kill somebody. I would qualify this as extremely dangerous driving.”

Fortunately, no one is believed to have been killed during the chase, though Lunford did sideswipe several cars along the way and at one point rammed into two more vehicles, including a black convertible Mustang with its top down. Lunford can be seen running over to the Ford and pulling the driver out of the car as the female passenger hops out on the other side. Lunford then takes off again in the Mustang, which lost a rear tire in the collision, and is seen fishtailing out of control along the way as he continues to flee.

His errant driving finally causes two other vehicles to collide in a parking lot, and Lunford continues on before crashing into a fence and into a seawall. He then hops out and begins to make his way through some mangroves, then jumps into the Intracoastal Waterway to try to swim away. Several deputies who had run onto an adjacent dock are then shown pointing their weapons at the man, who still doesn’t immediately surrender.

Police say the incident apparently started about 15 minutes earlier when Lunford had an altercation with another man during a drug deal, then stole his car.

Update!
Thanks to a reader who let us know the video was on YouTube so we are able to do the embed here:

Source:
kfoxtv.com

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