WATCH: Workers join low-speed police chase, flip stolen front loader

WATCH: Workers join low-speed police chase, flip stolen front loader

TAMPA, Fla. (WFLA) — Police in Georgia received some help from waste management workers during a low-speed chase on Saturday.

Gwinnett County Police were called to a waste management company when workers reported a former employee stole a front-loader and was driving it around.

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Officers told the man to stop, but he pulled out onto a busy road. They described his driving as “unpredictable.”

Workers climbed into a garbage truck a second front loader to join the pursuit. Police escorted them down the road and eventually caught up to the stolen equipment.

The second front loader flipped the stolen front loader onto its side five miles into the chase. Officers pulled the suspect, Eddie Sanchez, 38, out of the machinery and placed him under arrest.

The police department said this wasn’t Sanchez’s first time pulling a similar stunt. Sanchez, who was fired from the business in September 2023, allegedly stopped by his former workplace several days earlier and did something similar. Police said he never left the property.

Sanchez was charged with criminal trespass, theft by taking, fleeing or attempting to elude, reckless driving, criminal damage to property second degree, and obstruction of a law enforcement officer.

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