Northwood, IA- A Southern Minnesota man is in jail tonight after police say he stole a squad car and led them on a high speed chase.
Mower County Sheriff's Deputies responded to a call at a home about four miles east of Lyle. It was reported that a suspect was threatening a family member with a knife.
When they arrived the suspect had already left on a bicycle.
"So they wanted to initiate a track so they called the city of Austin and asked if one of our canine officers could come down and try to track the suspect," explains Austin Police Lieutenant John Mueller.
Mueller says the canine unit was tracking the suspect for nearly two miles. That's when they heard an unfamiliar voice over their radio asking about possible charges.
"The dispatcher looked at the GPS map and it showed that the question had come from the radio that was in the K-9 officer’s car and that the K-9 Officers car was moving, without the K-9 officer in it," Mueller said.
The Worth County Sheriff’s Office says the voice was 27-year-old Jeremy Ashley Winkel. He had hopped in the Austin police car. Now they were in pursuit.
From Lyle, they say the suspect took them across the border at speeds of more than 120 miles per hour.
All the while, the suspect listened his pursuit on the air waves.
"So he's transmitting on it he can also hear what the officers are saying so if they're trying to plot a strategy, he can hear that," Mueller said.
The Iowa State Patrol tried to stop him using stop sticks, but the suspect stopped and pulled a U-turn. Then struck a Mower County Deputies car and continued leading the chase.
He then got on the radio one more time to arrange his surrender at the Northwood Fire Station.
He sped through city streets and through alley ways before coming to a casual stop outside the Station, where firefighters were confused about just who the bad guy was.
"It had its lights on and everything so we had no Idea, I didn't know if somebody up here had done something wrong or what," said Northwood Firefighter Mitch Hanson.
As to how he was able to get control of the Austin Police Car, that's still under investigation.
Austin Police say the suspect struck and killed a dog Otranto, Iowa. No one else was hurt during the chase. Jeremy Winkel is in Worth County Jail on an eluding charge.
