Janice Morse reports:
A man used the Craigslist classified-ads website to troll for cars – then stole three of the vehicles, and drove one stolen car in a chase that ended with a crash, a Warren County grand jury says.
Trevon Broomfield. Photo provided by the West Chester Police Department.
“The defendant responded to at least three (Craigslist) ads, to purchase vehicles,” the grand jury report says. “The defendant then stole the vehicles from the owners.”
The offenses are alleged to have happened between Dec. 8 and Jan. 13, when Broomfield was allegedly involved in a 100-mph police chase that started in Butler County and ended with a crash in Warren County, police have said.
The incident began in West Chester Township, where police said they received a report that a 2005 Nissan Sentra had been stolen from a home. An officer spotted the vehicle and began following it and attempted to get the driver to pull over.
The Ohio State Highway Patrol joined the chase in the Monroe area. Broomfield avoided some tire-puncturing devices that officers put in the road in Lebanon, but he lost control. The vehicle went airborne, crashed into a trooper’s cruiser and landed on its roof.
Broomfield was seriously injured and was hospitalized at Atrium Medical Center in Middletown; the trooper was treated for minor injuries, police had said.
The hospital was unable to release information about Broomfield on Monday night, a spokesman said. He had not yet been booked into the Warren County Jail.
Staff writer Jennifer Edwards Baker contributed
