The suspect crashed his silver Acura near a gas station on West Street near West MacArthur Boulevard around 4 p.m. Police had been tailing the car for some time, but once they turned on their lights and siren, the suspect took off at a high rate of speed.
"I heard the car coming down the street and it was 'shhh' and I looked out the window and this grey car buzzed by, 'bzoom' and I'm like, 'Wow, what's going on?'" witness Mike Coleman said. "He started sliding and he got to this gravel and lost control and jumped the curb, jumped up, hit the pole here and the car ended up landing where it's now and then all the police got here, they didn't know where to go, they was running around, he ran across the street, jumped the fence, they all started running toward the fence and then a couple guys ran down, they actually caught him around the corner, down the street."
"He jumped out of the vehicle and ran into yards," said Oakland Sgt. Don Covington.
And that's where police found him. They also found bottles of medicine in his car -- medication taken from at least one of the pharmacies that had been robbed.
But while police gathered evidence, a sexual assault investigator also arrived on the scene.
Police had been searching for a suspect in an early morning home invasion robbery in which a 38-year-old woman living on the 6800 block of Wilton Avenue was sexually assaulted after she heard her dog barking and went to investigate the disturbance around 3 a.m. The woman's family, including two children were home at the time. Several items were also stolen from her home.
There have been several burglaries in the neighborhood recently.
"We look at suspects that are involved in different crimes because of information that we do receive," said Covington.
Covington said he didn't know for sure if this suspect was involved in the assault, but said it was a possibility.
One homeowner who didn't want to be identified on camera said, "We're still Oakland and what goes on just a mile down the road still effects us and for people who think we're living in a bubble is probably not right. We're still concerned citizens."
ABC7 has learned Oakland police will ask the sexual assault victim to look at either a photo or an in-person line up of the robbery suspect.
