Van cannonballs into pool after police chase
A man being chased by the cops took the plunge last night when he took a wrong turn and drove the getaway van into a backyard pool in Revere.
“He turned down what he didn’t know was a dead-end street,” said Dick Larsen, 83. “He turned into my driveway. He couldn’t stop and, next thing he knows, he’s swimming.”
Police arrested an armed robbery suspect early this morning after an intense search for a man who fled after the van splashed into the pool on Butler Street. Cops had chased the van from a reported armed robbery in Everett.
State police troopers and K-9 units assisted Revere cops in the search around Butler Street, Harris Street and the area behind Revere High School, and had given the transit police a heads-up to watch for him on the Blue Line.
Blue lights flashed on police cruisers racing down main streets and blocked off intersections as the search stretched into the night.
Police finally spotted the suspect about midnight and chased him down behind Lee Burbank Highway, where a state police K-9 unit caught him on the banks of the Chelsea River behind Global Oil. The suspect was identified only as an East Boston man. His name and age were not immediately available. He was taken to the state police barracks in Revere for booking.
Larsen said he had been watching TV when he “heard a bang” around 10 p.m. He came out to find a white van bobbing on his pool cover, stretched over the pool, which is still full of water.
“The guy who sold me the pool cover told me it would hold the weight of an elephant. I don’t know about an elephant, but I know it will hold a van now,” Larsen said.
He said the driver apparently fled through a neighbor’s yard after kicking through a section of the pool’s fencing. A tow truck was called to pull the van out of the pool — but the chain snapped, dropping the van back into the pool. The van was rigged again and pulled out.