Dashcam shows fleeing driver taunting Bratenahl police before getting rammed, wrestled to the ground
By: A crazy night for police in the Village of Bratenahl ended after the driver of a stolen BMW SUV kept returning to taunt them before he was taken into custody.
From police reports, officers first spotted the SUV before 3 a.m. Monday on Eddy Road, speeding and going through multiple red lights
The driver then went to Lakeshore Boulevard, where he made a U-turn to come back towards the cruiser, before accelerating at a high rate of speed past the officer.
Dash camera video shows the driver going through additional red lights, back and forth between the city of Cleveland with Bratenahl officers, each time discontinuing their chase.
“Am I able to do something about this? This guy’s just doing donuts and taunting us,” one officer is heard asking over their radio.
“He’s just doing donuts in the intersection of Eddy Road. We are not pursuing him even though he wants me to” says another officer.
Dash camera video shows the driver returning time and time again, coming to a complete stop in front of the officers at intersections, then later driving past them in the wrong direction in opposite lanes.
At one point, the driver stopped on a bridge, got out of the driver’s side of the vehicle and stood next to the rolling SUV in front of multiple officers
“When myself and the other police units arrived to Eddy Road and Lakeshore Boulevard, the same vehicle was parked in the intersection facing south on Eddy Road, with the driver, a black male wearing a ski mask, was halfway out the vehicle screaming at us and yelling at us. ” said one officer in his report.
Eventually, officers were able to use their vehicles to box him in, at which time the SUV was travelling backwards at a high rate of speed. It collided with a police SUV and a utility pole, and another cruiser rammed its passenger side door.
The driver of the SUV, identified as 20-year-old Joseph Byron Littlejohn of Cleveland, then ran from the officers, who used a police K-9 to subdue him, and he was eventually taken into custody.
Police say the SUV was stolen from Willoughby.
Inside, they found a Glock handgun with a one live round in the chamber and a fully loaded magazine with 22 live rounds of 40mm ammunition.
Littlejohn was arrested and faces charges that include fleeing and eluding officers, resisting and having a weapon under disability.