NORTHAMPTON — While officers searched for a scantily clad man in a swamp behind Cooley Dickinson Hospital, they say the suspect snuck into one of their nearby cruisers.
Officers responded to the hospital at around 8:35 a.m. Sunday after someone reported a man “running in the parking lot, wearing only his underwear,” according to a press release issued Sunday by the Northampton Police Department.
Police said the 25-year-old man then ran into the swamp behind the building, pursued by officers. As they searched the wooded area, the man emerged, disabled the transmission lock on a cruiser parked on Hospital Road and made off with the police car.
The man then “led officers on a low-speed pursuit” through Florence, before circling back to the hospital, where officers arrested him, the release states.
Police declined to get more specific about the incident on Sunday, but said more information would be available Monday.