A failed crime spree came to an abrupt end yesterday, when a Tucson man crashed a police cruiser he'd stolen into a bus. He died.
The unidentified 34-year-old man began his trail of mayhem around 3:50 p.m. yesterday, when police say he tried to steal a car with several people in it near the Rondstadt Transit Center in Tucson.
The carjacking didn't go well -- the suspect failed to steal the car, so he fired a gun, not hitting anyone, before running off.
An off-duty officer saw the failed carjacking and called police.
The suspect tried to steal another car in a nearby parking lot. He failed to steal that car, too, and kept running.
Police first spotted the man shortly after the second attempted carjacking and tried to stop him.
A responding officer got out of his police cruiser to confront the man but when he
approached the suspect, the failed carjacker pushed him over and managed to successfully steal his first car of the day: the officer's police
cruiser.
The officer got up and fired several shots at the suspect as he was driving away.
A few blocks away, the cruiser spun out about three times before crashing into a public bus.
The man was arrested and taken to a nearby hospital, where he was pronounced dead.
It's unclear whether any of the shots fired by the officer hit the suspect.
The 14 passengers on the bus, the attempted carjacking victims, and the officer were all unharmed.
