A 911 call about two individuals passed out in a car at a Wood Village, Oregon, business turned into a much more violent encounter. Multnomah County deputies arrived at the scene on Monday to perform a welfare check. One deputy approached carefully, and the driver woke up. They started the engine and rammed a patrol SUV before driving off through the parking lot.
The driver, deputies discovered, had been sitting in a stolen car. They also discovered, in the moments after they stopped the driver, that they were wearing a tactical vest and a holster. They realized this was far more than your typical welfare check subject.
There was a second person in the car when officers arrived. But instead of getting out and running, she remained in her seat in the vehicle throughout the entire ramming and chase situation. She even stayed in the front passenger seat when the stolen car came to a stop, but the driver got out and ran.
But there’s a silver lining to the story: the police were able to stop and apprehend the driver. No one was ultimately injured, thankfully. Though it was a highly unusual situation, all did turn out well in the end, except of course for the driver who rammed the SUV.
The Welfare Check Gone Wrong
According to the Multnomah County Sheriff’s Office, deputies were called at about 10 a.m. on Monday, May 25, to the 23300 block of Northeast Halsey Street in the Wood Village area. A 911 caller had spotted two people who appeared to be passed out inside a dark green Honda sedan parked in a designated accessible-parking space.
Deputies pulled in behind the Honda and quickly determined it had been reported stolen, the sheriff’s office said. Almost immediately, the driver started the engine, backed into one of the patrol vehicles and hit several other parked cars before speeding away. The Honda left the parking lot eastbound on Northeast Halsey Street and turned north onto Northeast 238th Drive.
How Deputies Stopped Him
Deputies followed and executed what’s known as a a pre-authorized Pursuit Intervention Technique (PIT) maneuver to stop the car near Interstate 84. The 35-year-old woman in the passenger seat stayed in her seat. The driver got out and ran toward a set of nearby train tracks, clad in a tactical vest with a holster. Deputies set up a perimeter, caught up with him, and took him into custody. They recovered an Airsoft gun on-site.
The driver was ultimately identified as 23-year-old Angel Clarence Bourdage, who was booked into the Multnomah County Jail along with the woman from the passenger seat. Bourdage was already a wanted man at the time of his arrest, though the sheriff’s office did not specify what the previous warrants were about.