If you’ve ever played hide-and-seek as a kid, you know the cardinal rule: pick a good spot. A 52-year-old Rochester man apparently missed that lesson entirely, because after leading police on a chase through the city, he decided the cargo area of a hatchback was his ticket to freedom. It was not.
On Tuesday, officers with the Rochester Police Department’s Special Enforcement Team spotted their opportunity when they got word that Mark Heath was riding in a vehicle on 16th Street Southwest and Third Avenue Southwest. Heath wasn’t exactly a mystery guest. He was already carrying an active warrant for fleeing police in a vehicle and drug sales, which means law enforcement had been looking forward to this reunion for a while.
When officers moved to pull the car over, the driver had other ideas and took off. The chase wasn’t exactly a Hollywood blockbuster, but it ended in a parking lot on the 1600 block of Broadway Avenue South, which is where things got creative.
The Hatchback Hideout That Fooled Nobody
When officers approached the vehicle, Heath was nowhere to be seen, at least not immediately. He had tucked himself into the hatchback area of the car, apparently hoping that police would just shrug and move on. They did not shrug. They found him.
What followed was less of a dramatic standoff and more of an awkward crawl. Heath reportedly tried to wriggle away from officers and refused to follow their commands, which is generally not a strategy that ends well. Officers deployed a Taser to take him into custody, and that was that. Heath was transported to the hospital for medical clearance and then booked into the Adult Detention Center, where he now faces additional charges of obstruction and drug possession on top of his original warrant.
The Driver Wasn’t Off the Hook Either
Heath wasn’t the only one having a bad Tuesday. The driver of the vehicle, Marvella Collins, 54, also of Rochester, now faces her own set of charges including fleeing an officer in a vehicle and aiding an offender. Giving someone with an active warrant a ride and then stepping on the gas when police try to pull you over turns out to be a legally complicated decision.
What This Stop Was Really About
Rochester’s Special Enforcement Team exists specifically to track down people with active warrants and handle higher-risk situations in the city. This stop was not a random traffic encounter. Officers had intelligence that Heath was in the vehicle and were already aware of his history, which included a warrant tied to a previous vehicle flight and drug sales. That context matters because it explains why a full team was involved and why the stop escalated the way it did.
For car enthusiasts, the real tragedy here is that someone used a hatchback, one of the most practical and beloved body styles in automotive history, as a getaway accomplice and hiding chamber. The hatchback deserved better. Heath and Collins, on the other hand, got exactly what a situation like this tends to deliver.