An 11-year-old girl is safe after a LaPorte man who was “just trying to get (expletive) home” Friday afternoon stole her mother’s car as she was in it.
Crown Point Police at around 2:33 p.m. June 27 were called to the CVS Pharmacy at 93rd Avenue and Main Street about a stolen car, according to a probable cause affidavit. There, the woman whose car was stolen told them she ran inside the store and left her daughter in the car.
As the girl waited, a man got in the driver’s side and started backing out, even as he looked in the rearview mirror and saw she was sitting back there, court records said. At that point, she jumped out of the car and ran inside the store to tell her mom what happened.
Officers, after getting the car’s license plate from the woman’s insurance card, heard from Merrillville Police that they’d located the car traveling eastbound at 61st and Harrison Street with a man in it, records said. Merrillville officers tried to stop him, but he gave chase and ended up heading north on Broadway before proceeding eastbound on Interstate 80/94, records said.
Lake County Sheriff’s Department police, Indiana State Police troopers and Lake Station Police officers stopped the car at the 18.4-mile marker of I-94 and arrested Cary Benjamin Kellogg, 46, at LaPorte — but not before a rear-passenger tire flew off and landed on a pursuing officer’s car, records said. He told officers at the scene that, “For what’s it’s worth, I’m so sorry, guys. I’m just trying to get the (expletive) home,” records said.
Kellogg has been charged with three felony counts of attempted kidnapping; auto theft, a Level 6 felony; resisting law enforcement, a Level 6 felony; and misdemeanor reckless driving.
Michelle L. Quinn is a freelance reporter for the Post-Tribune.
