[voice over pa system] ...leave the building.
[narrator] In Ohio...
[man speaking]
You immediately started thinking of casualties.
[officer] It was horrifying.
-[fireman speaking] -[officer] All right. All right.
[woman moans in pain]
[narrator] Fifty miles across the state...
[woman 1 speaking]
[kid yelling]
[indistinct shouting]
[woman 2 screaming]
My stomach dropped.
[officer speaking]
[narrator] And in Wisconsin,
police pursue a stolen snowplow.
I can't believe this is actually happening.
[opening theme playing]
[narrator] In Northeast Ohio is Mahoning County,
and the city of Youngstown.
[phone ringing]
[911 operator speaking]
[male caller speaking]
[911 operator speaking]
[male caller speaking]
[911 operator speaking]
[Captain Tommy Gibbs] When a call like this comes in,
nine times out of ten, turns out to be nothing.
Maybe a car was parked outside for a long period of time,
somebody left their pilot light on.
Usually, they are very basic calls.
[Michael Romeo] Realty Tower is a 13-story building.
The first floor, there is a Chase Bank.
And on the south side,
there is apartments.
There's a lot of people that live there,
a lot of people coming and going,
a lot of professionals that live in the building.
On May 28, I ended up going up to my office,
which is on the 14th floor directly across the street.
[voice over pa system]
[narrator] At Realty Towers, an alarm sounds,
and residents start evacuating.
I was talking, um, to my team
about a project that we were getting ready to go to,
and that's when it happened.
I just felt... this power.
I heard it,
and everything shook.
[loud rumbling]
[Romeo] I see a rush of dust
with a yellow hue.
I ended up snapping a picture
and calling 911.
[Deputy Joseph Hamilton] I'm about a block south of the Realty Tower.
I hear the explosion.
I ran out.
And I could just see the biggest cloud of dust and debris and smoke.
I radioed my sergeant and let him know that there was an explosion,
and that I was headed towards it.
-[phone ringing] -[911 operator speaking]
[man 1 speaking]
[phone ringing]
[man 2 speaking]
-[phone ringing] -[man 3 speaking]
[911 operator speaking]
[narrator] Michael Romeo starts to evacuate his building
and the hotel directly across the street.
We need to pull this fire alarm now.
We need to move everybody out of this building
'cause the hotel is sold out.
There's hundreds of people here,
and there can be another explosion.
[officer yelling] Let's go! Let's go! Let's go!
I couldn't talk. I was just trying to focus on the task at hand.
[woman speaking]
[siren wailing]
I could just see what I thought was smoke
filling all of the downtown area.
I initiated what we call a second alarm,
which will send me additional crews.
-[Dep. Hamilton panting] -[siren wailing]
[Dep. Hamilton yelling]
I've never seen anything like this.
[indistinct shouting]
[Dep. Hamilton] There was so much damage done.
The first floor was down into the basement.
The basement floor was just completely uprooted.
It was horrifying.
[siren wailing]
[Dep. Hamilton yelling]
There is a gas leak. You could smell it. You could hear it.
The biggest fear I have is a secondary explosion.
The front face of the building,
the whole first floor is already open.
The secondary explosion could be huge.
[indistinct shouting]
You could hear people yelling and people running everywhere.
The shock hit
of what am I seeing.
[Dep. Hamilton speaking]
Go ahead.
[indistinct shouting]
[Dep. Hamilton] All right, all right!
This was one of the biggest catastrophes that I've ever been on.
You immediately start thinking of casualties.
[narrator] The energy supplier has been called to shut off the gas.
But with people trapped inside,
there's no time to wait.
[indistinct conversation]
[Chief Tim Frease] The front wall of the building is completely blown out.
I can actually see the stilt skeleton of the building.
The residential side of the apartment building
had no cracking, no bricks falling from above.
[narrator] But some residents, including the mom and baby
captured on camera,
got out with just minutes to spare.
As firefighters search for casualties,
police block off several streets in the area.
[Dep. Hamilton yelling]
[officer speaking]
[pedestrian speaking]
[officer speaking]
[pedestrian speaking]
[officer speaking]
[dispatcher speaking indistinctly over radio]
[officer speaking]
[man speaking]
[officer speaking]
[survivor speaking]
[indistinct conversation]
[officer speaking]
[Chief Frease] Our immediate problem was the Chase Bank.
[narrator] The bank on the first floor
has collapsed into the basement.
Firefighters need to climb down
to search for victims.
[Chief Frease] When you're putting people into a building like that,
you're continuously reassessing,
is this building progressively moving towards collapse?
Hoping that it's not a sudden catastrophic failure,
that you get a warning that you can pull people out.
[Dep. Hamilton speaking]
That is when I had Officer Hamilton hold the ladder,
so I could lower myself down in there.
[Dep. Hamilton speaking]
As I began to hold the ladder, it was pretty unsteady.
It wasn't a basement floor.
It was literally, uh, concrete and piles and rubble.
I... I work with all these firefighters.
I know their families.
It is a very stressful occurrence to put them into harm's way,
knowing that there is a substantial amount of risk involved with this.
[Romeo] The power was still on in that building.
There is a gas leak,
and now I'm able to look down and see firefighters
in three, four feet of water.
All I could see was, uh, top of a female's hair.
It was covered in dust, and I did notice blood.
[indistinct shouting]
[Capt. Gibbs] I asked her, um,
if she was able to stand,
and she advised me, "No."
I knew I only had one option to get her out,
and that was to put her on my shoulder.
[Dep. Hamilton] We need to get these people out immediately
and try to preserve as much life as we can.
[siren wailing at a distance]
[Dep. Hamilton speaking]
[Capt. Gibbs speaking]
[Dep. Hamilton] All right. All right.
[woman groans in pain]
Go ahead. Go. Go.
-[officer] We gotta go. We gotta go. -[woman yelling]
[Dep. Hamilton speaking]
[officer speaking]
[woman yelling]
[Dep. Hamilton] Her face was just... it was bloodied.
You could see the lacerations. You could see the cuts.
They were all over.
Her leg was wobbling.
[woman yelling]
-Stay calm, dear. Hang on. -[Dep. Hamilton speaking]
They're all breathing in this gas right now.
[Chief Frease] When the first ambulance gets there,
that ambulance becomes the medical triage center.
[female officer] Do we have any other medic here?
[man speaking]
[indistinct conversation]
-[woman wailing] -[female officer] I know, dear. I know.
[woman speaking indistinctly]
[phone ringing]
[young woman caller speaking]
[Dep. Hamilton speaking]
[Capt. Gibbs] Right directly behind us,
there was a bathroom that was kind of buried and trapped.
There was a lady trapped in there
waiting for someone to rescue her.
She did not sustain any physical injuries that I witnessed.
[fireman speaking]
At that point, I don't have a roster.
You could have friends in the building.
You could have random workers in the building.
It's a physical search of the entire structure.
[voice over pa system]
[narrator] Seven people are injured in the explosion.
Tragically, 27-year-old bank employee,
Akil Drake, is killed.
[Dep. Hamilton] His body was discovered or recovered later that night.
That would have been [exhales]
about eight or nine hours after the explosion, unfortunately.
[Capt. Gibbs] I have not had the pleasure of meeting the Drake family,
but...
uh, hopefully they're aware that I tried my best to,
uh, locate their son.
[Romeo] It could be anybody.
I mean, we walk out of buildings every single day.
I walked in and out of that...
resident side of that door,
a hundred times in the last month.
[Capt. Gibbs] The toughest part is the aftermath,
and the the mental warfare it plays on you.
[Dep. Hamilton] I just wanted to, uh,
I just wanted... just wanted to be with my family. [inhales]
At that point, you realize what's important,
and you realize, um...
it's... it's family.
[narrator] The 100-year-old Realty Building
is being demolished due to damage
resulting from the explosion.
The cause of the blast is still under investigation.
[Romeo] I mean, it's a gut punch, but...
it's Youngstown.
We bounce back, so...
We'll get there, but it's... it's a rough time right now.
[narrator] In Northern Ohio...
just south of Cleveland,
is Summit County,
and the city of Akron.
Honestly, it was my first day
on the job
without having someone sit next to me.
So I was a nervous wreck that day.
Summit County is the area we dispatch for.
We only had five people working that day
and all the phones were ringing off the hook.
[phone ringing]
[Brown speaking]
[female caller speaking]
[Brown speaking]
[female caller speaking]
[indistinct yelling]
[Brown] The caller had said, "We're at Taco Bell.
This guy came out of nowhere."
He just pulled this woman out of the car
in the drive-through.
[narrator] The mom tries her best to hold on.
[Brown] He took off towards the highway.
And there's kids in the car.
Taco Bell, kidnapping, car was taken.
[narrator] Two young boys escape
and make it back to their mom.
But there's a third child.
[female caller speaking]
[woman crying]
I was on adrenaline.
This is really happening.
I need to get this call out to my officers,
so we find the child.
[female caller speaking]
[woman speaking]
-[Dep. Dies speaking] -[woman crying hysterically]
[Dep. Dies speaking]
[kid speaking]
[indistinct yelling, crying]
[woman yelling]
The mom was screaming extraordinarily loud,
which is totally understandable,
given she just probably went through the most
traumatic experience of her entire life,
as well as having one of her kids still in the vehicle
that was commandeered by this male.
-[woman and kids yelling, crying] -[Dep. Dies speaking]
[narrator] Less than 100 yards from the Taco Bell,
is a gas station.
[phone ringing]
[male operator speaking]
[female caller 1 speaking]
[female caller 2 speaking]
[Deputy John Lombardi] Incidents like that can go south in seconds.
The victim might start fighting back.
The suspect might have a weapon,
so it could escalate really, really quick.
[male operator speaking]
[female caller 1 speaking]
[Brown] The original call was an elderly lady at the gas station.
She had said that there was an older male
with a tank top on, late 30s, early 40s.
[male dispatcher speaking]
[Brown] She was actually very scared, initially.
Um, you can just tell.
It was hard to get information from her.
She was like, "Just hurry. Just hurry."
[female caller 2 speaking]
[narrator] 911 callers track the suspect's movements.
[Brown speaking]
[female caller 2 speaking]
[Brown speaking]
[female caller 1 speaking]
[woman yelling]
[woman wailing]
[siren blaring]
[narrator] Multiple patrol units are called in
to find the stolen minivan
and the kidnapped two-year-old.
[dispatcher speaking]
[Dep. Dies speaking]
When I found out that it was an actual kidnapping,
that this van had a kid inside,
my heart dropped a little bit
because I thought of my family and what my wife
might have went through if somebody did,
in fact, try and steal her car.
[indistinct shouting]
[dispatcher speaking]
[woman speaking]
[officer speaking]
[woman speaking]
[Dep. Dies speaking]
[dispatcher speaking]
[Dep. Dies speaking]
[narrator] And there is another major concern for deputies,
the baby's mother.
[Dep. Dies speaking]
[sirens blaring]
[dispatcher speaking]
[Dep. Dies speaking]
[Dep. Lombardi] I immediately jumped on the highway,
and drove as fast as I could to try and catch up.
We were trying to get more information
on the vehicle,
um, that we were looking for.
[sirens wailing]
[Dep. Dies] I had to locate this van.
I had to find the kid.
I had to get that child back to his mom.
I was also looking for very erratic driving
because I knew that if the male was willing to fight somebody
and then throw a female out of the car,
that this wasn't somebody that was gonna be driving 65
with all rules of the road involved.
And there was a dark-colored, uh, Honda minivan.
Five-one-three-eight.
[dispatcher speaking]
[sirens wailing]
[dispatcher speaking]
It made me very nervous
because the way that this gentleman was driving,
he had the door wide open.
I wasn't sure if a two-year-old would have unbuckled
if he was just rolling around the back seat of the minivan.
My four-year-old, he knows how to take his seatbelt off.
The only thing keeping a child in this car
is wide open on the driver's side door.
My stomach dropped.
[Dep. Lombardi] I was thinking, "Oh, God,
please don't let a little kid's head pop out."
[sirens wailing]
[Dep. Lombardi] At the speeds we were going,
I was worried that it wasn't going to end well.
[Dep. Dies speaking]
When I looked down, we were doing
close to 130 miles an hour.
[sirens wailing]
[horns honking]
[Dep. Lombardi speaking]
You have the suspect car,
you'll have two cars on either side of it,
and then you'll have a lead car.
And that lead car will try and slow down.
And then those other two side cars will slow down as well.
And it gives him nowhere to maneuver to,
and just forces him to slow down.
[Dep. Dies speaking]
[officer speaking]
Everybody, all together, keeping it very tight...
simply attempting to box this car in,
and to get to a safe and slow speed...
with the safety of the child in mind in the back.
[sirens continue wailing]
[Dep. Dies speaking]
I remember him looking over at me,
and him starting to turn into my car.
[tires screeching]
[Dep. Dies] I knew that he was really trying
to get away from us by any means necessary,
even if that meant him trying to get me to crash my car.
[Dep. Lombardi] He was able to go into the construction zone
and get out of the area where we were
trying to box him in at, so we were unsuccessful.
[Brown] I'm still on the phone with the lady next to the mom
because she's our only connection to the child,
the only connection to the man.
I can't hang up.
[female caller 1 speaking]
[Brown] Mom has not stopped screaming on this phone at all.
[siren wailing]
[tires screeching]
[Dep. Dies] He was bouncing in and out of traffic.
He hit a utility truck
with a trailer on it
as he was attempting to lane split and get away from us.
[dispatcher speaking]
[Dep. Dies speaking]
[Dep. Lombardi] It was very dangerous.
He connected with my car, trying to ram me.
At those types of speeds,
he wasn't just trying to disable us.
He was trying to take us out.
So all the other 911 calls that are coming in are my partners.
-[phone ringing] -[911 operator speaking]
[caller 2 speaking]
[911 operator speaking]
[caller 2 speaking]
[911 operator speaking]
[caller 2 speaking]
[Brown] All I hear in the background,
"We have the child at Circle K.
We have the child at Circle K."
[dispatcher speaking]
[Dep. Dies] The child was identified at that Circle K.
He was there. He was safe.
He was not in the car.
He was going to be going back to his mom.
[female officer speaking]
-[woman laughs, weeps] -[female officer speaking]
-[all weeping] -[male officer speaking]
I felt a little bit at ease
knowing that I could now concentrate on going after the suspect
versus having to worry about anybody else in the car.
[Dep. Dies speaking]
[siren wailing]
[Dep. Lombardi speaking]
[dispatcher speaking]
[Dep. Dies speaking]
[dispatcher speaking]
[Dep. Dies] He was still driving extraordinarily erratic.
I had to make sure that no matter what was happening,
that I had to keep the general public in mind
as far as their safety goes.
We went from a freeway where there's not gonna be a lot of foot traffic,
to now, into a residential in Akron.
[dispatcher speaking]
[Dep. Lombardi speaking]
Once I got into the residential,
that's when I started getting nervous.
I was glad that Akron police were right behind me.
As I turned down one of the side streets,
I could see in my rearview mirror that Akron drove right by us,
while the street ended up being a dead-end road.
[sirens wailing]
[Dep. Lombardi] When the vehicle stopped,
he had the door open
and I tried to pin him in.
Then I jumped out, pulled out my Taser.
It was a tree line,
and I did not know that there was a hill there.
[sirens blaring]
[Dep. Lombardi speaking]
I start side-stepping down,
and that's where I got caught up in trees
and all the debris that was down there,
and took a tumble down the hill.
The terrain, it was very unsafe and slippery.
[groans]
[sirens continue wailing at a distance]
[Dep. Lombardi] Luckily, Akron knew that that was a dead-end street
and there was only one way out of it,
and that was down that hill.
[dispatcher speaking]
[officer speaking]
[officers shouting indistinctly]
They went two blocks up,
turned on that street, and they were actually waiting
when he ran out of the wooded area.
[officer yelling]
After him running out of the wood line, he had just laid down and...
all the fight was pretty much out of him.
Thankfully, I was able to catch up.
[breathing heavily]
He had our handcuffs on him.
Finally, now he was gonna answer for what he had done.
[indistinct conversation]
[Dep. Dies speaking]
[officer speaking]
Closing that door was a...
it was big sigh of relief 'cause, finally...
everybody was safe.
It was the best-case scenario
to a very, very potentially tragic incident.
[indistinct conversation]
[Dep. Dies speaking]
[narrator] 44-year-old Mark Carlson
is convicted of robbery, assault, kidnapping,
and failure to comply with an officer.
He is sentenced to up to 19 and a half years in prison.
[Brown] It was my first day.
It was either sink or swim.
My first call ever, and I got the mom on the phone.
The mom is screaming.
[female caller 1 speaking]
[woman crying]
[Brown] I had to swim.
To this day, actually, I still sometimes
hear that mom scream.
It's just not a call you forget.
[Dep. Dies] It was surreal that we had gotten him,
truthfully, that this guy didn't crash the car
and none of us had gotten severely hurt.
[Dep. Lombardi] I'm always curious as to why you do the things you do.
Why you chose to assault a woman
and take her car and scare her kids?
[woman speaking]
[Dep. Lombardi] We, later on, learned that,
you know, he was under the influence.
He had been in our jail multiple times.
I was not going to let that mother go home
knowing that I didn't give my all
to try and catch this monster for her.
[narrator] In Wisconsin,
thirty miles southwest of Green Bay,
is the town of Grand Chute.
[Sgt. Jennifer Clement] In Grand Chute,
you never know what your day is going to bring.
That's exactly why I got into this profession.
I love the unpredictability.
[narrator] In the neighboring city of Appleton,
security cameras in the parking lot
of a shopping mall
record something unusual.
[Sgt. Clement] The city first had the call come in
that they had a theft of the skid steer
used for snow removal
for that strip mall.
[man speaking]
[officer speaking]
[man speaking]
[Sgt. Clement] You don't need a key to start a skid steer.
He just took it from there.
I was actually kind of dumbfounded.
[narrator] Appleton PD quickly moves in
to try to stop the thief.
[Sgt. Clement] Everybody involved was just like,
"I can't believe this is actually happening."
[Lt. Adam Miller] I was curious whether his intentions
are to steal it and just enjoy a joyride,
or if his intentions are bad, to cause harm.
[siren wailing]
[narrator] As the snowplow leaves the parking lot,
an emergency call for assistance
goes out to neighboring police departments.
Gand Chute responds.
[sirens wailing]
[male officer speaking]
[indistinct audio over radio]
[Lt. Miller] The driver either ignored us,
was oblivious to us, or just didn't care that we were there.
He is not slowing down at all.
[Sgt. Clement] It wasn't a high speed.
We definitely were able to keep up with it.
[Lt. Miller] I've never had a skid steer run from me,
and it's something that I've never thought about how to stop.
So in the moment, it's difficult to come up with different solutions.
We don't know who this individual is,
so we're concerned that he's either armed
or other issues are going on.
[sirens wailing]
[dispatcher speaking]
[female officer speaking]
[male officer speaking]
[Sgt. Clement] I couldn't believe that we were pursuing
at a very low speed,
trying to get this vehicle to stop.
[sirens wailing]
[indistinct]
[Lt. Miller] The skid steer is designed to travel any sort of terrain,
so it is very difficult to stop.
[female officer speaking]
[Sgt. Clement] It was almost like he was playing a game
and just kind of going up and down and around
and, honestly, kind of... [chuckles softly]
testing out how the construction equipment works.
[Lt. Miller speaking]
I'm watching this skid steer drive back and forth across the highway,
and I'm torn between both a comedic issue
and also wanting to stop him.
It would be really easy if we got close enough to him
for him to basically,
roll over our squad car, flip it upside down,
or even potentially compact it with his bucket.
[siren wailing]
[male officer speaking]
[Lt. Miller] It was still in the time of day
where people were getting up, ready to go to work.
So I was really concerned that the skid steer could
easily push over a wood-frame house and drive right through it.
[male officer speaking]
[Sgt. Clement] Usually, we have equipment to deflate tires,
but this one had no tires to deflate.
We had no idea
how to disengage that vehicle.
[male officer speaking]
[Brian Walbrun] I was sitting in my chair, watching TV.
I heard noise coming down the street
and I looked out the window,
and when I saw what was making the noise going by,
it was a skin steer.
[male officer speaking]
[Walbrun] Then I heard the sirens right behind it.
And then there was one cop car,
two cop cars, and three cop cars,
and I thought, "Okay, we've got a parade."
Right then and there, I knew that this wasn't a guy
that was coming down to plow somebody's driveway out.
[Sgt. Clement]
[Walbrun] It was the strangest thing I probably think I've ever witnessed.
[speaking conversation over radio]
[narrator] Officers track the snowplow
as it rolls into another rural neighborhood.
[speaking conversation over radio continues]
[Sgt. Clement] I got out on foot, along with my supervisor
and we pursued on foot.
[narrator] They spot the snowplow...
on live railroad tracks.
[Sgt. Clement] It is the live railroad.
We have a couple of trains that come through each day.
Not knowing if there was a train in the area,
we were in a time crunch.
[Lt. Miller] We were worried the individual would be able to use the skid steer
to potentially derail the train.
[male officer speaking]
[Sgt. Clement] We were very fortunate that we had contact
with the railroad company
before a train came through.
[Lt. Miller] I am hopeful that the tracks actually help
and the skid steer gets stuck and it becomes disabled.
[Sgt. Clement speaking]
Every once in a while, he would attempt
to maneuver off the tracks.
He would get stuck here and there.
[male officer speaking indistinctly over radio]
[Sgt. Clement speaking]
But then he would be able to maneuver the skid steer,
and, um, off he would go again.
[narrator] Finally, the suspect maneuvers the snowplow
off the tracks.
[indistinct conversation over radio]
[Sgt. Clement speaking]
[male officer speaking]
[Sgt. Clement speaking]
He turned off
and ended up in a very large open field.
[footsteps approaching]
[Sgt. Clement speaking]
He just kind of started doing some circles.
I just thought, "Okay, here we go."
[Lt. Miller] He's not running.
And then, as I'm watching him,
this skid steer suddenly just stops.
I still had a little bit of fear
that he'd be able to spin the bucket
and hit one of the officers.
[Sgt. Clement] I didn't know what was going through his head,
whether he thought
he still had an opportunity to run from us.
[Lt. Miller yelling]
It was clear that he was either ignoring our commands
or couldn't hear our commands.
I knew he was under the influence of something.
[Sgt. Clement yelling]
[indistinct shouting]
[Sgt. Clement] He definitely did not want to be taken into custody.
[Lt. Miller and Sgt. Clement yelling]
[Sgt. Clement] But once we did get those handcuffs on him,
we knew we were safe.
-[suspect grunting] -[Lt. Miller speaking]
[narrator] The suspect is 37-year-old Tyler Peschke.
He pleads no contest
to charges of drunken driving
and eluding an officer.
He is sentenced to two years in prison.
[Lt. Miller] He's walking through the parking lot of this mall,
sees the skid steer,
and I think he's so far under the influence of narcotics
that he really doesn't understand what he's doing.
He gets into a skid steer, turns it on, decides to go for a ride.
[Walbrun] He didn't really hurt anybody or hurt anything,
and he got caught.
He just made a poor choice that day.
[Sgt. Clement] It was one of the craziest days.
This definitely is a reason that I got into police work.
You just never know what type
of calls for service we're gonna get.
Never in a million years,
did I think we would be pursuing a skid steer that day.
♪♪
In Arkansas...
In New Mexico...
And in Washington State...
I'm terrified.
♪♪