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Disgruntled worker hijacks construction truck
Eddie Sanchez was accused of hijacking a construction vehicle from a Gwinnett County site he hadn't worked at since September. Police found out this wasn't the first time. (Credit: Gwinnett County Police Department)
GWINNETT COUNTY, Ga. - Gwinnett County police had a massive problem on their hands on Saturday when they heard someone hijacked a 75,000-pound industrial frontloader from a Waste Management facility on Corely Road in unincorporated Norcross.
Remarkable dash and body camera footage shows officers – and employees – attempting to stop the man at the wheel.
"The employees there stated that an ex-employee who had been fired back in September was on the premises and was driving one of the pieces of equipment around the property," said Cpl. Ryan Winderweedle.
But things went from bad to worse when he floored on the gas pedal and took it out of the facility and onto the public road.
The frontloader erratically barreled down public roads toward Saturday traffic on Jimmy Carter Boulevard.
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Man hijacks frontloader from work site
A man in Gwinnett County is facing serious charges after taking a 75,000 pound frontloader for a joyride.
In that moment, the police didn’t have anything big enough to stop the massive machine.
As officers worked with state troopers to keep his path clear, another Gwinnett County officer hatched a plan back at the WM facility.
"How fast is it?" the officer asked an employee.
"They can get up to probably about 30 [mph]," the employee responded.
"OK, grab that," the cop said, pointing to another frontloader. "Quick, quick, quick!"
Police escorted the current WM employee in that second frontloader up the road nearly five miles to intercept the other one.
"They were trying to use the weight of that equipment to try to stop this individual," Winderweedle said.
The video shows the plan working.
The employee was able to flip the hijacked frontloader.
After the roughly half-hour ordeal, police arrested a man they identified as 38-year-old Eddie Sanchez of Delaware.
While Sanchez hadn’t worked at the site since September, officers said he had done the same thing just days earlier, but that time he didn’t leave the facility’s yard.
Remarkably, no other vehicles were damaged and no one else was hurt.
(Credit: Gwinnett County Police Department)
First responders took Sanchez to the hospital for evaluation, but he was later released and is now behind bars at the Gwinnett County Jail.
Waste Management declined to comment on their employee’s quick-thinking actions.