Last week, police arrested a woman for allegedly shoplifting products from a local beauty shop in Lufkin, Texas. They cuffed her and put her in the back of a police cruiser—apparently failing to realize the woman they’d just apprehended was some sort of secret Houdini of Crime.
While the cops were busy digging through her bags of allegedly stolen merch, the woman unbuckled her seatbelt, slipped out of her handcuffs (without even puking up a key), wormed her way into the driver’s seat, and sped off in the stolen police SUV.
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According to the Washington Post, 33-year-old Toscha Sponsler then led the Lufkin PD on a 23-minute car chase, taking the cruiser up to 100 MPH and periodically playing chicken with other cop cars. Thankfully, no one was seriously injured in the whole Bullitt-style pursuit, which police caught on video. The Lufkin Police Department posted footage of the chase on its Facebook page, along with an account of what went down.
“Sponsler nearly went head on with two Lufkin officers and a Huntington constable during the pursuit,” the cops wrote. “Throughout the chase, officers could see her reaching for the officer’s shotgun which was mechanically locked to the vehicle.”
In perfect action-movie chase fashion, police pulled a PIT maneuver—where they nudge the side of the offending car and send it spinning—and finally brought Sponsler to a stop.
She’s now facing a whole mess of charges, including escape causing serious bodily injury and threat of a deadly weapon, and is being held on a $18,000 bond. She still hasn’t posted it, which means she’ll sit in jail until some master crook bails her out to help pull off an epic Ocean’s Eleven heist or something.
Watch the entire chase, from handcuff escape to final showdown, via the Lufkin Police above.
