A car stolen from a Hialeah home early Monday morning turned into a police chase that ended with police smashing into the fleeing suspects around northwest Miami-Dade just 12 hours later.
Video obtained exclusively by NBC6 shows two men smashing the window of a white 2021 Dodge Challenger, rolling it out into the street, and then taking off.
The car owner Iran Garcia said he was sleeping when the thieves stole his vehicle.
“They smashed my window, they opened the hood and they just drove off,” Garcia told NBC6 in Spanish.
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Garcia said he was unsure how the two men broke into the car. He wondered if they had found a way to hack the Challenger’s computer system.
On Monday afternoon, police said they found 21-year-old Kenneth Barahona and 40-year-old Edwin Figueroa with the stolen Challenger.
The two led Florida Highway Patrol troopers on a pursuit that ended in the area of Northwest 79th Street and 21st Avenue.
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Aerial footage of Chopper 6 showed an FHP vehicle rammed into the side of the stolen Challenger after performing a PIT maneuver. The Challenger came to a rest after smashing through the metal fence of a residential front yard.
Officers said they found a stolen gun inside the car.
No homes were affected and no injuries were reported.
Figueroa faces theft and resisting charges on top of his open criminal cases. Barahona faces charges for fleeing from police, in addition to charges for smashing windows and breaking into about 10 cars earlier this month, according to records.
At times, Barahona stole power tools and even a flashlight from a City of West Miami police truck.
Both men were granted bond this morning.
