The photo attached to this report, provided by the Richmond Police Department, shows a police standoff near the Bay Bridge Toll Plaza involving a driver who claimed to be a sovereign citizen.Â
The driver was ultimately arrested without injury to himself or others and suspected of DUI, but not before a bit of adventure.
According to KRON4 News, the incident unfolded around 5:45 a.m. as a Richmond police sergeant was traveling on westbound Highway 24 south of the Caldecott Tunnel. The sergeant saw a vehicle driving erratically in the heavy morning commute traffic and attempted to perform a traffic stop, but the driver refused to stop and continued to drive at slow speeds, stopping several times to decare he was a sovereign citizen who did not recognize the police sergeant’s authority to stop him.
“The driver ultimately decided to drive to the Bay Bridge Toll Plaza area, where he stopped in the middle of the merge, optimizing the havoc he could wreak on the morning commute,” police said in a report of the incident Thursday.
The RPD used its drone team to determine that the driver was the sole occupant of his vehicle.Â
“After negotiations with the suspect to exit his vehicle failed, officers were able to introduce a chemical agent into the interior of his car,” police said. “The driver quickly decided he wanted he wanted to get out of his vehicle and was taken into custody without incident.”
The freeway was then reopened and the driver’s vehicles was towed. The driver was arrested on suspicion of attempting to evade officers, DUI, and an outstanding warrant from a previous case where he ran from a police vehicle, according to the RPD.
