Stolen pickup recovered stuck in mud

 

A stolen Ford F-150 pickup was recovered Feb. 24 after it became stuck in the mud near the Sorrento subdivision.

Fabian Hernandez, 27, was arrested and charged with theft of means of transportation and booked into the Pinal County Jail.

Officers with the Maricopa Police Department responded about 3:30 p.m. after a caller said a gray Ford F-150 was stuck in the area. A registration check of the license plate indicated to officers the vehicle was stolen out of the City of Coolidge on Feb. 22.

Arriving on site, the officer found five people standing around the vehicle, according the report.

The officer contacted the subjects, and two were identified by their Mexican Matricular cards. They said they were installing drywall nearby in new homes when they were approached by Fabian Hernandez, who asked if they could help him get his truck out of the mud.

One of the men told the officer they were done for the day, so they agreed to help push the pickup out of the mud.

The officer decided to detain two of the people near the truck and when they approached Hernandez, he took off running, according to the report. A Border Patrol canine helped find Hernandez 400 yards away lying in the brush.

Hernandez, Tyshon Norris and another unidentified person were transported to the Maricopa Police Department and interviewed. Norris, and the unidentified person, told officers that Hernandez picked them up in the stolen vehicle on the Gila River Reservation, according to the probable cause statement.

“They drove taking back roads and were heading to the Ak-Chin when the vehicle got stuck in the mud,” the officer wrote in the probable cause statement.