A 52-year-old Key Largo, Florida man was arrested Sunday after trying to take a Sheriff’s Office Patrol Sergeant’s weapon, briefly stealing his patrol vehicle, stealing another car, and crashing the second car on U.S. 1. There were no life-threatening injuries reported.
Armando Lopez was charged with false imprisonment, domestic violence by strangulation, attempted murder, resisting arrest, grand theft auto, fleeing and eluding, impersonating a law enforcement officer, burglary of an emergency vehicle and resident’s vehicle, carjacking, leaving the scene of a crash, possession of a firearm/ammunition by a felon, and driving with a suspended driver’s license.
The Sheriff’s Office responded to a domestic incident at a residence on Palm Drive at approximately 4:25 p.m. Lopez was beating an adult female there. Lopez grabbed a responding Sergeant’s service weapon in its holster and unsuccessfully tried to remove it while punching the Sergeant. Lopez fled from the residence. He was shocked with a Taser, but the Taser did not incapacitate him. Lopez then stole a Sheriff’s Office patrol vehicle and drove away from the scene.
Lopez then stopped a Kia SUV while in the patrol car. He forced the female driver out of the Kia, jumped inside and drove north on U.S. 1. Lopez rear-ended another vehicle near Mile Marker 104, causing the Kia to flip.
Lopez was taken to Mariners Hospital in Tavernier and then to jail.
“I am relieved there were no life-threatening injuries caused by this incident and the suspect is currently where he needs to be — sitting in jail,” said Sheriff Rick Ramsay. “It is a reminder of the dangers law enforcement officers routinely face while simply doing their jobs.”
