Man arrested after driving stolen car into Crown Point home

A Hammond man is in custody after driving a stolen car into a Crown Point home early Sunday morning.

Crown Point officers who were at the Police Station around 12:27 a.m. December 8 heard a vehicle crash in the 400 block of East Clark Street, according to a release issued by the city Tuesday. They arrived to find a vehicle crashed into a home, the release said.

Witnesses told police the driver ran southbound from the scene, so K-9 Blitz and his handler started tracking him behind the crash scene, the release said. They found man as he was attempting to break into a garage in the 100 block of Nichols Street, according to the release.

The driver — a 27-year-old Hammond man — was arrested and taken to a nearby hospital for a hand injury, according to the release. Officers also detected the smell of alcohol on him; toxicology results obtained at the hospital are pending.

The man, who the Post-Tribune isn’t naming until he is formally charged, admitted he’d taken the vehicle from a family member and told police he was “thinking about his grandmother before the crash, causing him to run off the road,” the release said. He had two active warrants — one for criminal mischief and another for intimidation — and prior convictions at the time of his arrest, according to the release.

The man is preliminarily charged with theft of a motor vehicle, a Level 6 felony, as well as misdemeanor failure of duty, driving while suspended prior, criminal trespass, and operating while intoxicated, pending lab results.

Michelle L. Quinn is a freelance reporter for the Post-Tribune.