Jiminy Christmas, what they hell happened to the homecoming king and queen?
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OK, we don't know if Jesse Jet Brooks or Annette Soyinthisane received scepters back in the day. We do know they began new reigns in Orange County Jail Sunday afternoon.
The Irvine Police Department received a call Sunday morning about a man checking car door handles in the underground parking garage of 2300 Dupont Drive. Officers arrived there about 8:15 a.m. to see a fellow in the process of committing a vehicle burglary, according to a statement from Irvine Police Lt. Julia Engen, the department spokeswoman.
As the cops closed in, the chap saw that he had been made and ran to another vehicle, hopped in and drove toward officers, states Engen, adding that one cop, fearing for his life, fired a handgun round at the driver but missed him.
The driver kept coming, wedging his vehicle between the police car and a block wall before driving out of the garage and onto Dupont Drive, where the chase for him was picked up by more Irvine officers in cars, Engen said.
A short but high-speed pursuit included the suspect vehicle being driven into opposing lanes of Jamboree Road before it pulled into an apartment community on Via Lucca and crashed into a wall just outside an underground parking lot that was secured by a gate, Engen said.
The driver got out of his ride and hoofed it over to a Via Lucca resident, saying he needed assistance because he'd just been in a traffic accident, according to Engen, who notes the resident allowed the stranger to use a phone in the unit.
Officers set up a perimeter, and a man identified as 29-year-old Brooks was arrested around 8:45 a.m. as he left the apartment.
Twenty minutes later, a taxi carrying 26-year-old Soyinthisane arrived at the apartment complex. Irvine detectives believe Brooks had called her to come pick him up, according to Engen. Soyinthisane was arrested on suspicion of falsely identifying herself to officers.
Further investigation revealed the pair had been staying together the past two days in a nearby hotel room, where “evidence of fraudulent activity and stolen property were located,” according to Engen, who noted detectives are now matching items with goods stolen from recent thefts in Orange and San Diego counties, including Irvine vehicle burglaries.
Brooks was booked into Orange County Jail Sunday afternoon on suspicion of assault with a deadly weapon, resisting arrest, evading officers and vehicle burglary. He also has a no bail assault warrant issued in San Diego County. Soyinthisane went to the women's side for the false I.D. allegation.
Email: mc****@oc******.com. Twitter: @MatthewTCoker. Follow OC Weekly on Twitter @ocweekly or on Facebook!
OC Weekly Editor-in-Chief Matt Coker has been engaging, enraging and entertaining readers of newspapers, magazines and websites for decades. He spent the first 13 years of his career in journalism at daily newspapers before “graduating” to OC Weekly in 1995 as the alternative newsweekly’s first calendar editor.